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A SCIENTIFIC MAN 
AND THE BIBLE 


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A SCIENTIFIC 
AND THE BIBLE 


A PERSONAL TESTIMONY 


/ BY 
HOWARD A. KELLY, M.D., LL.D. 


EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF GYNECOLOGICAL SURGERY 
IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 


PHILADELPHIA 
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY 


Coprricut, 1925, By 
Tue Sunpay Sceoot Times ComPpANY 


First Printine—May 1925 

SECOND PRINTING—JUNE 1925 
THIRD PrRInTING—JULY 1925 
FourtTH PRINTING—SEPT. 1925 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 
MY FIRST AND BEST FRIEND 
GUIDE OF MY YOUTH 
INSPIRATION AND STRENGTH 
OF MY MATURER YEARS 
AND CROWN OF MY APPROACHING 
THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN 


MY MOTHER 


**O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am 
thy servant, and the son of thine hand- 
maid.’’—Psalm 116. 


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PREFACE 


The occasion of the writing of these brief 
chapters was the request of the Editor of The 
Sunday School Times, Mr. Charles G. Trum- 
bull, for a rather full statement of my personal 
experience in coming to my present faith, to be 
followed by a simple setting forth of the great 
doctrines ever held inviolate by the historic 
Christian Church. I undertook this with the 
co-operation of my Bible class in Baltimore, 
making these topics the subjects of our weekly 
Sunday morning studies. 

My readers may miss many important refer- 
ences under each heading, but I hope the state- 
ments will be found to be simple and under- 
standable, and that the hearts of men and 
women, here and there, who are looking for 
light, may be touched. 

I would remind all my fellow-Christians that 
when we confess Christ as our Saviour we do 
not arrive at a settled position, but receive 
from him the implantation of a new life of 
endless growth, a growth conditioned upon the 
daily due use of the various means of grace, 
among which the most important are a daily 
appropriating use of the Word of God, definite 


PREFACE 


prayer, a service calculated to bring men to 
Christ, the Lord’s Supper, and the recognition 
of the mission of the Holy Spirit in this present 
dispensation, especially as set forth in the 
Epistles. 

A Spirit-filled Christian saturated with the 
Word soon finds that those who reject the Gos- 
pel, however eminent in their professional at- 
tainments, really have no conception of the true 
nature of our faith and are fundamentally 
ignorant of the Word. 

May our Father bless this humble effort to 
magnify his Word and the name of his Son. 


Howarp A. Ketiy 


VII. 


CONTENTS 


. How I Came To My Present Farto.... 18 
. Tos WHote Brste tHE Word or Gop.. 41 
UBB WIBITXOP GHEISN OS, See iets ccs ne ore 65 
MV THEMIS IB TET. Uys OG We ic ye ae 85 
THe BLoop ATONEMENT........sse0ee 97 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy....... 117 
Ets GORD EMBL URI, ers eta s c's eres 137 






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HOW I CAME TO MY 
PRESENT FAITH 


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I 
HOW I CAME TO MY PRESENT FAITH 


N THE economy of grace it is by no means 

a necessity, yet it is a distinct advantage 
and a blessing, to have godly ancestors. My 
mother comes from a devoutly religious New 
England family on her father’s side and is of 
Quaker descent on her mother’s side. My 
mother’s father, the Rev. A. B. Hard, of Ar- 
lington, Vt., used to say with Cowper, ‘‘We 
boast an ancestry passed into the skies.’’ His 
love of the Bible showed itself in the deep emo- 
tion with which he spoke of it. As a small boy 
I used to observe with wonder his eyes filled 
with tears as he talked of it before others who 
felt but little interest in the subject. His sister, 
Jane Hard, married the Rev. Henry Coit, of 
New York, who was for a time Rector of St. 
Andrew’s, Wilmington, Del. The son of Jane 
Hard and Henry Coit was the founder of St. 
Paul’s School, Concord, N. H., and its head- 
master until his death. My grandfather, a 
youthful graduate of the Theological Seminary 
of Alexandria, Va., was invited by his brother- 
in-law in 1827 to preach his first sermon in St. 


Andrew’s pulpit. It was then that the daughter 
13 


14 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


of a slave-holding state met the young New 
England divine, brought up in New England 
ideals and trained in its clear and simple faith. 
My grandmother used to relate to her daugh- 
ters a tale of their betrothal. When she ac- 
cepted his earnest plea for her hand, to her 
surprise and confusion, his joy found expres- 
sion in the words ‘‘Let us pray.’’ He drew her 
to her knees beside him, fervently thanking our 
Heavenly Father and beseeching his guidance. 

On my father’s mother’s side are the families 
of Kuhl and Hillegas with an unbroken record 
of born, married, died and buried in Philadel- 
phia for over 200 years. Among them was my 
father’s great grandfather, Michael Hillegas, 
the first Treasurer of the United States. My 
father’s father’s family came to Philadelphia 
from the north of Ireland in the eighteenth 
eentury. ‘Two brothers, Thomas and Philip 
Kelly, converted in Ireland to Methodism, 
found it difficult to remain at home. They 
sought their fortunes in the New World which 
gave them liberty of conscience and material 
prosperity. 

Like most boys, I owe my real start in life to 
my mother, still living, who began to teach me 
the Bible, standing at her knee, as soon as I 
could dimly grasp the simple words and before 
I could read. How well I recall measuring out 


How I Came to My Present Farrp 15 


the verses of the second chapter of Matthew 
with deliberate childish intonation, ‘‘ Now — 
when — Jesus — was — born — in — Bethle- 
hem — of — Judea — in — the — days — of 
Herod — the — king — behold — there — came 
— Wise — Men — from — the — East,’’ and 
so on. My first of a long series of Biblical 
puzzles was the command of John the Baptist 
to the Pharisees to ‘‘bring forth therefore 
fruits meet for repentance’’; I could not figure 
out how fruits could be meat! 

During the Civil War while my father, still 
living, was at the front with the 118th Pennsyl- 
vania Volunteers, we lived in old Chester, Dela- 
ware County, Pa., to be near the grandparents 
and aunts, and we attended old St. Paul’s 
Church. There a devoted teacher, Miss Mattie 
Smith, trained us children in the kindergarten, 
and the habit of church-going was formed and 
the mental attitude of reverence was adopted 
from our elders under the ministry of a digni- 
fied, earnest, long-time incumbent, the Rev. 
Henry Brown. Painted on the semicircle over 
the chancel in old St. Paul’s in impressive cap- 
itals, ever since graven on my memory, stood 
the motto: ‘‘Holiness Becometh Thine House, 
O Lord, Forever.’’ I can still recall times of 
earnest thought on life, God, and eternity at 
five or six years of age. In 1863 or ’64, father, 


16 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


writing from the front, sent me a verse from 
the Bible, which carries me back to the reading 
of his letter: ‘‘My son, be strong in the grace 
that is in Christ Jesus.”’ 

It was here, too, in Chester, that my mother 
detected and diligently fostered a strong in- 
born love of natural history inherited from her- 
self, which expressed itself first in what I called 
‘‘bugology.’’ My ardent hope was to discover 
some new species, but I was depressed by the 
thought that all might be found and described 
before I could sally forth into the field. Dr. 
John Le Conte, the great coleopterist of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences, visiting us in 
Chester about that time, bade mother assure 
me that some would surely be left for the next 
generation. 

When the war ended we returned to Phila- 
delphia, and new friends and school life 
brought in fresh interests; I have ever since in 
retrospect gratefully recalled a brief session in 
the Rev. Mr. Shin’s school on Mt. Vernon 
Street, aided by his fine wife and daughter. At 
ten years of age, my father entered me under 
the tutelage of the widely known Scotch school- 
master, John W. Faires, head of the Classical 
Institute on Dean between Locust and Spruce 
Streets. Dr. Faires was a fine, capable dominie 
of the ancient regime who ruled his little king- 


How I Came to My Present Farra 17 


dom with a kindly justice, graduating into 
friendliness with the two upper classes. His 
ultimate appeal in cases of flagrant violations 
of discipline was the rattan, or ‘‘birch oil,’”’ as 
we called it. The doctor kept a salutary bundle 
of his rods in sight and at intervals selected a 
new one with careful testings as to limberness 
and to exclude cracks. Most of us deserved all 
the tannings (never too severe) which we got 
from time to time with immediate manifest 
beneficial results. Dr. Faires was assisted by 
one or other of his sons and by William Craig 
of Norristown, a scholar and a man of fine 
Christian character, to whose precepts and ex- 
ample we owed much. I could linger long over 
a host of boyish experiences, pranks, and the 
friendships of those days (1868-73), as could 
hundreds of other Philadelphians of earlier 
and later years still living, but this is more a 
spiritual biography. 

Commingled with a natural, healthy school 
life and the temptations and fights common to 
boys of all ages, I was ever conscious of the 
eall to yield life more faithfully to higher 
things, and here I began, in the fifth Latin class 
in 1869, the life-long habit of carrying a New 
Testament or some portion of Scripture in my 
pocket. I venture to commend this as a good 
practice for all boys; a portion of the Bible on 


18 A Screntiric Man AnD THE BIBLE 


one’s very person constitutes a sort of a badge 
of membership or a profession, a safeguard in 
fact in temptation, and affords opportunities of 
storing up bits of Scripture in memory and so 
of realizing the promise implied in ‘‘Thy word 
have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin 
against thee,’’? as well as the cleansing of the 
young man’s way. <A habit formed later was 
that of writing out a verse of Scripture on a 
piece of paper in the morning and tucking it 
into the vest pocket to be taken out for occa- 
sional meditation. Let me skip a couple of 
decades to recall an incident of my return from 
visiting my family at Spring Lake, N. J., one 
summer. On the train I found Dr. George 
Faught of Philadelphia, an old but hitherto 
only superficial acquaintance, and we fell into 
a conversation, when suddenly, as a sort of a 
test, he asked, ‘‘Where is the Kingdom of 
Heaven?’’ I put my finger into my vest pocket 
and hooked out my slip and handed it to him; 
on it was written in Greek, ‘‘The Kingdom of 
Heaven is within you,’’—it was my text for the 
day! This started a long and profitable Chris- 
tian friendship, since Faughty, as we called 
him, had an extraordinary custom of making 
minute analyses of the Word and was also its 
champion and doughty defender against all 
comers. 


How I Came to My Present Farru 19 


The instructions of a faithful mother, the 
constant companion of my childhood, ripened 
into the clearer perceptions of the truth and the 
convictions of boyhood, until in about the year 
1871 I was confirmed by Bishop Stevens under 
the pastorate of the Rev. Richard Newton, the 
widely known evangelical preacher of the 
Church of the Epiphany at Fifteenth and 
Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia. How fine was 
the care Dr. Newton gave to the preparation 
of his young ‘‘catechumens’’; we attended his 
classes and each was given as well a little book 
to study, in which to write answers to questions 
testing the knowledge and right understanding 
of the Scriptures. In those days we had weekly 
prayer-meetings in which all took part. 

It was in those days, too, that it seemed that 
outside of the familiar channels new and extra- 
ordinary fountains of grace and blessing were 
being opened up in such novel procedures as 
week-day Bible readings and parlor gatherings. 
W.S. Rainsford, who (later, I believe) was the 
means of starting a great revival in Toronto, 
arrived fresh from an athletic pre-eminence in 
the crew at Oxford University, Eng., and held 
afternoon readings in the Sunday-school room 
of the Epiphany; Sarah Smiley of Mohonk, 
N. Y., once a Quaker but now a high church 
Episcopalian and full of grace, talked to parlor 


20 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


groups in West Philadelphia on faith; Hannah 
Whitall Smith gave Bible talks on DeLancey 
Place near Nineteenth Street—all of these I 
attended with my mother with profit and an 
ever-increasing sense of the riches stored up in 
the Bible. The Spirit of God was evidently 
moving in our midst, as in other communities, 
and awakening a fresh interest in God’s living 
Word, everywhere re-creating and refreshing 
the spirits of men. 

College life at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, 1873-1882, first in Arts and then in Med- 
icine, brought precious life-long friendships. 
Definiteness in the Christian life was greatly 
assisted if not openly and actively promoted by 
the example of such teachers as Allen and 
Muhlenberg in Greek, Jackson in Latin, Ken- 
dall, and especially the warm-hearted recently 
lamented Robert Ellis Thompson, teacher of 
Political Economy. It was somewhere about 
this time, when in Arts, 1875 or 1876, that 
Moody and Sankey came to Philadelphia early 
in their evangelistic labors in the East to hold 
their meetings in the old freight depot of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad at Thirteenth and Mar- 
ket Streets, filled with twelve thousand souls. 
This was the biggest crowd I had ever seen and 
long remained my standard of the measure of a 
vast multitude. Both stirred me deeply,— 


How I Came to My Present Fartra 21 


Moody’s simple, earnest, effective Biblical ex- 
hortations, and Sankey’s earnest singing to the 
accompaniment of his organ; here, too, I first 
saw men moved to seek salvation in the inquiry 
rooms. An odd circumstance impressed me 
with Moody’s unquenchable zeal for souls, in 
that he walked through the crowd right over 
the tops of the benches to reach some of those 
who held up their hands for help. It must have 
been the following year that I attended 
Moody’s meetings in Baltimore, held in the Mt. 
Vernon Methodist Church. Here I went back 
into the inquiry room and met him personally, 
and received a copy of his ‘‘Way and the 
Word.’’ He had not yet learned the great need 
of the follow-up work characterizing his meet- 
ings on his return years later when I was liv- 
ing here, a part of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 
and University. 

I entered the medical department of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania in 1877, not because L 
loved medicine as such, but because anatomy 
and sundry associated scientific studies seemed 
the closest approach to natural history in which 
it was hard to make a living. Four years in 
medicine brought delightful associations with 
eminent scientists—Joseph Leidy, Edward 
Drinker Cope, and Harrison Allen. Cope I 
had known long before this as a teacher and 


22 A Sotentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


patron, through my interest in the reptile 
kingdom. 

The attempt to cultivate both medicine and 
science proved too much for the frail flesh, so 
I had to go West for the year 1880-81 as a cow- 
boy on the plains of Colorado, on the O Z Ranch 
in Elbert County, to win back my ability to 
sleep. Riding a broncho, and with flapping 
saddle bags carrying my drugs, I had a most 
valuable experience on the ranch, coupled with 
some months in the mines in Grizzly Gulch, at 
the head of the Chalk Creek Canyon some eight 
thousand feet in elevation. A half blind man 
named French and I drove a good herd of 
eattle up the Ute Pass, around Pike’s Peak, 
and across the South Park to be slaughtered 
for the miners. While batching part of the 
time in Colorado Springs, I entered the postal 
service (not by any formal appointment) and 
earried the United States Star Route pony mail 
when the regular carrier was sick,—from Colo- 
rado Springs up to the Divide and back. 

My cowboy friends, with whom I lived on the 
ranches and foregathered at the spring and fall 
round-ups, were many of them aggressive pro- 
fessed atheists, saturated with the writings of 
Tom Paine, Bob Ingersoll, and Kersey Graves. 
How many earnest conversations there were 
about ‘‘religion,’’ especially with one dear 


How I Came to My Present Fartn 23 


friend, William Bates, the postmaster at O Z 
(so named after a cowbrand)! Aside from the 
constant recourse to my Bible, I found Nelson 
on ‘‘Infidelity’’ a great comfort in my lonely 
emergency. Nelson himself had been an un- 
believer, but had been won to a Christian faith 
by the obvious fulfilment of the prophecies 
touching the ancient cities Babylon, Nineveh, 
and Tyre. 

In the midst of the cold and lonely winter far 
out on the plains, I had a never-to-be-forgotten 
experience one night during one of Colorado’s 
three-day blizzards while I was bedfast with 
snow blindness from the glare of the sun on the 
snow striking unprotected eyes; it was in Wil- 
liam Bates’ house at the postoffice. I think that 
one can hardly speak of a matter so profoundly 
personal and sacred without considerable re- 
luctance, but I could not well pen even an out- 
line of a spiritual autobiography and not refer 
to this chief event in life. There came as I sat 
propped up in my bed an overwhelming sense 
of a great light in the room and of the certainty 
of the near presence of God, lasting perhaps a 
few minutes and fading away, leaving a realiza- 
tion and a conviction never afterwards to be 
questioned in all the vicissitudes of life what- 
ever they might be, a certainty above and be- 
yond the processes of human reasoning. I 


24. A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


avoid speaking of a ‘‘vision’’ as too thread- 
bare and as savoring perhaps of some degree 
of enthusiasm (in the old sense of the word) 
and of unreality. I add with shame that this 
has not had the transforming effect upon my 
life which it ought to have had. 

Returning from Colorado, I took my medical 
degree in 1882 and entered the Episcopal Hos- 
pital in Kensington, Philadelphia, for a resi- 
dency of over a year. Here at last my real 
medical education began in the dispensaries 
and in the wards under excellent and always 
kindly and sympathetic clinical chiefs, men of 
reputation, such as Morris Lewis, Louis Starr, 
J. M. Anders, in medicine, and C. B. Nancrede, 
John Hooker Packard, and William 8. Forbes, 
in surgery. I found a particularly congenial 
friend in Andrew K. Minich, chief of the dis- 
pensary service, who took a keen interest in 
his young protegés. After I left the hospital, 
Dr. Minich continued his interest in aiding and 
abetting my surgical aspirations in every way, 
circulating the report that I ‘‘did a Cesarean 
section every morning before breakfast’?! I 
had a chance to show my appreciation of his 
great kindnesses some years later, when (in 
about 1890) he was taken with that terrible 
disease, cancer of the throat (he had been a 
great smoker), from which he died after 


How I Came to My Present Fart 25 


months of suffering. He welcomed my visits 
and we talked of things eternal and of the faith 
in Christ. I was living in Baltimore, and, when 
I could not visit him, I adopted the plan of 
writing regularly; in order to lessen his efforts 
I bought a Bible and clipped the verses and 
passages referred to, and pasted them in the 
letters, making the references easy and placing 
the responsibility upon the Word itself. Dr. 
Minich left no doubt as to his deep interest and 
appreciation, but I was unable to see him near 
the last, when tired nature gradually drew the 
veil over the senses before the great change. 
The Rey. David Lovejoy, M.D., and later 
Francis M. Taitt, now of Chester, Pa., incum- 
bent in the new St. Paul’s, were warm friends 
during my hospital residency. Hospital ex- 
periences drew me into intimate touch with the 
problems of suffering humanity and revealed 
the priceless gratitude of the poor when treated 
with affectionate consideration; this was the 
final touch necessary to convert all my interests 
to my profession, no longer merely a means of 
livelihood, but a shining path of service replete 
with rich spiritual rewards. I owe to the poor 
and the mill workers of Kensington and all 
others since who have trusted me so unre- 
servedly through life the rich rewards of joy 
and satisfaction the practice of surgery has 


26 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


brought me these past forty-three years. 

On leaving the hospital, I cast my lot with 
the mill workers of Kensington, many of whom 
had been my patients in the hospital, quitting 
my home some five miles distant in the heart 
of the city; and to their patience with and their 
confidence in the aspiring young doctor are due 
my early experiences and such measure of suc- 
cess as I have attained. The greatest fruitage 
of this work, continued for some eight years 
in this mill district, was the advent upon the 
field of my sister Esther, now Mrs. R. R. P. 
Bradford, who soon also abandoned her down- 
town home and came to live among her Ken- 
sington parishioners and so began that model 
Christian social work in which the all-pervad- 
ing, dominating force is the evangelical mes- 
sage while the physical needs of the people are 
met as well throughout the year. This is the 
widely known Lighthouse, on West Lehigh 
Avenue near the hospital, with its great asso- 
ciated activities, now maintained by a large 
corps of Christian workers and headed also by 
my brother-in-law, Mr. Robert Bradford. 

In 1888 I was appointed, together with Dr. 
Barton Cooke Hirst, to an associate professor- 
ship in obstetrics in my alma mater, where I 
officiated for a year under the incubus of at- 
tending to a large practice and doing heavy 


How I Came to My Present Faire 27 


responsible surgical work in Kensington and 
at the same time preparing and delivering a 
first course of lectures, in a lecture room be- 
fore a great crowd of students, at a place a full 
hour and a half distant, on a subject not espe- 
cially congenial, while an aspirant for the 
promised chair of gynecological surgery shortly 
to be vacated by Professor William Goodell. 
Meantime, in 1889, came the call to Balti- 
more, through the advocacy of my good friend, 
later Sir William Osler, to participate in the 
opening up of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and 
Medical School, in the chair of gynecological 
surgery. My department was fortunate in the 
early assistants who came to my aid: Hunter 
Robb, the first resident, W. W. Russell, Albert 
Stavely, Benjamin Schenck, Stephen Rushmore, 
Curtis F. Burnam, Henry Hutchins, Ernest 
Stokes, Thomas S. Cullen, Guy L. Hunner, John 
Sampson, John Clark, and Max Broedel, our 
distinguished artist. We all took to work, to 
investigations, and to writing papers on sur- 
gical subjects, as ducks to water, in our efforts 
to magnify our department and creditably to 
earry on the Hospital Reports and the Bulle- 
tins. Our Medical School then seemed to us 
to differ from other schools, not necessarily so 
much in the personnel of men like Welch, Osler, 
Halsted, and Hurd, and many of the fine early 


28 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


residents and teachers, as in a certain per- 
vasive spiritual atmosphere, in the generous, 
kindly appreciation each entertained for the 
others, coupled with a proper pride and an 
abiding interest in the constructive work being 
done in the various fields of medicine, and with 
the prospects which loomed up for the future. 
There was a notable lack of jealousy, while a 
rare harmony reigned in the halls of the new 
model hospital endowed by Johns Hopkins and 
planned by John S. Billings, chief of the Li- 
brary of the Surgeon General in Washington, 
D. C., and international authority in hospital 
construction. We unconsciously afforded an- 
other illustration of the value of the maxim, 
‘‘In honor preferring one another,’’ for where 
love is, there happiness and progress are sure 
to find their congenial dwelling-place. 

But yet for myself in the midst of these de- 
lightful external conditions, internally all was 
not going so well, for the spirit was not being 
duly nourished and so could not duly grow. A 
destructive analysis of the Holy Scriptures 
called the Higher Criticism of the Bible, im- 
ported from intellectual Germany, was sweep- 
ing England, and our own America seemed 
only too eager to fall into line. The effect of 
the criticism was to knock out the one great 
prop of faith by subdividing the Bible into in- 


How I Came to My Present Fartu 29 


numerable fragments, or perhaps more literally 
by tearing it to pieces, while questioning its 
authenticity and challenging its authority on 
every page with the rejection of many vital 
parts as the myths of a nomadic people. Muir- 
acles were discredited because contrary to the 
laws of nature, and with them logically went 
the Virgin Birth of Christ, his Deity, his Aton- 
ing Death, his Resurrection, and his present 
mediatorial office at the right hand of the 
Majesty on High. The climax of this method 
was exhibited to the eye in the bizarre poly- 
chrome or ‘‘rainbow Bible’’ issued by a friend 
from my own university, in which each shade of 
color indicated redaction and a different au- 
thorship. 

This attitude of a group of exceedingly ca- 
pable, often personally attractive men, and 
generally highly trained linguistic scholars, 
generated such a feeling of uncertainty that 
multitudes felt that there was no longer any 
assurance that whenever and wherever one 
might open the Bible looking for spiritual food 
one would not find chaff. So widespread a dis- 
tress only served to demonstrate the impera- 
tive demand of the human heart for an abso- 
lutely dependable message, in so vital a topic 
as salvation from sin, our universal disease. 
Coincident with this neo-critical development 


30 A SctentIFIC MAN AND THE BIBLE 


and its vast literature, in the United States 
there was observable also a profound disturb- 
ance of our young people everywhere by two 
eurious phobias which I must dwell upon at 
some other time, namely, the dread of being 
ealled ‘‘unscientific,’’? or ‘‘narrow.’’ I think 
that in some degree these bogies still survive 
in our colleges. 

The destructive criticism, however injurious, 
eould not be lightly brushed aside, and the 
grave questions were: How far would it go in 
undoing and rejecting all the past as worthless, 
and what was the best method of dealing with 
some of its obvious errors? The answer to 
these queries constituted so important a land- 
mark in my life, and I doubt not in the lives of 
many, that I linger at this juncture. 

The weakest point immediately observable in 
my opponent’s armor was the ruthless warfare 
being waged on the Gospel of John, alleged to 
be a product of a later century and another au- 
thor, thus annihilating its authenticity and all 
spiritual value. Now, I knew more about, and 
in some degree better understood, this Gospel 
than the others. A long and reverent study of 
its teachings and the harmonies sounding from 
its pages, together with the comforting assur- 
ances it brought to the hungry spirit, had made 
its absolute reliability so obvious that to set it 


How I Came to My Present Fatru 31 


aside as a later artificial product put a far 
greater strain upon my credulity than its ac- 
ceptance at its own valuation as the writing of 
John the evangelist and the living oracle of 
God’s Holy Spirit graciously given to our per- 
ishing humanity. As I touched one after an- 
other of the many golden chords of God’s pur- 
poses running through it, each sounded out as 
clearly and as consistently as though the Gos- 
pel had been written solely to develop that one 
theme, and each called forth its responsive har- 
monies in all other parts of the sacred Scrip- 
tures. The conviction, therefore, of its absolute 
veracity and dependableness remained irresist- 
ible. This position of the critic has been aban- 
doned, so the wisdom of this wisest of all ages 
reaches the climax of discovering that the Gos- 
pel of Luke was written by Luke, and John was 
written by John! Had we been a little wiser 
at the time in following more closely the work 
of the archeologist in Egypt, in Asia Minor, in 
Palestine, and farther east, we might have 
noticed that the spades of the excavators from 
Layard and Rawlinson down through the dec- 
ades were rapidly bringing data to the surface 
to prove irrefutably the accuracy of Biblical 
narratives. 

I think that I am not wrong when I aver that 
the attitude of many Higher Critics has heen 


32 ‘A’ Sorentiric Man AND THE BrsiE 


that Biblical statements may easily be an error; 
or, if any statement does not appeal to one or 
can by ingenuity be explained in some way to 
its discredit, it may deservedly be held under 
suspicion or even rejected. On the other hand, 
all declarations in other ancient works must 
necessarily be authoritative, correct, and 
worthy of acceptation, and therefore sufficient 
to prove the inaccuracy of our Bible. The right 
rule and attitude of mind is just the reverse. 

In my perplexity in meeting this danger, I 
was also aware of the vagaries and diverse and 
contradictory conjectures of this Bible-wreck- 
ing cult and of its many autoschediastic assever- 
ations. I recalled some of the answers already 
given by history. For example, at one time it 
was asserted that Moses could not have written 
the Pentateuch because writing was almost un- 
known in his time. If, therefore, writing was 
excluded, the only other available source of in- 
formation must be tradition by the word of 
mouth, and we all know how garbled that may 
become in a few centuries. As I looked about 
me for a weapon, grace guided my hand to the 
only effective one, the living Word. Like Pil- 
grim of old, when beaten down by Apollyon and 
at his wits’ end, his fingers clutched ‘‘the sword 
of the Spirit’? and the victor was vanquished, 
so, weapon in hand, I laid lustily about me and 


How I Came to My Present Fatrn 33 


the arch enemy soon melted into his own limbo. 
The effort was crude, but it was effectual; I 
opened a Concordance and looked up ‘‘word,’’ 
to see what the Bible claimed for itself and to 
test it out. Manifestly everywhere it claimed 
in all its parts to be the very literal Word of 
God to men, and so I accepted it and so I ap- 
plied it. The result was that difficulties began 
to vanish and supernal harmonies came in to 
sweep the chords. Tested in this way, the Bible 
worked, and from that day on I became as a 
Christian philosopher, a member of the great 
school of pragmatists, for pragmatism defines 
practicability as the supreme test of any doc- 
trine; it only asks, Does it work well? I am 
thankful that my emancipation took place in 
this wise through the Word itself, and that I 
only became more familiar at a later date with 
the notable works of the archeologists and with 
the papyri of the Fayum Desert and Oxy- 
rhynchus. 

Is not the battle thus always but an exemplifi- 
eation of the sixth of Ephesians where in the 
Christian panoply there is but a single weapon, 
‘‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
God,’’ and ‘‘all prayer’’? Also ‘‘they over- 
came him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the 
word of their testimony,’’ and that testimony 
ever is and forever will be to the sacrificial 


34 ‘(A Sorentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


blood of the Lamb of God which alone can 
cleanse our sins, the fulfilment of all the pro- 
phetic sacrifices through all the ages. And the 
word of their testimony ever derives all its au- 
thority from and conforms to this perfect, com- 
pleted, written Word, earth’s one great heri- 
tage of the ages. Well may we cry out of 
thankful hearts with the Psalmist, ‘‘Thy word 
is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.’’ 
With an authoritative Bible in hand difficulties 
either melted away or became inconsequential. 
I began to go forward, fed from my Father’s 
table, and since then ‘‘have esteemed the words 
of his mouth more than my necessary food.’’ 

For some years in the nineties and beyond I 
met often with the local assembly of the 
Plymouth Brethren, to whom I owe much for 
their manifest love of the Bible and their clear 
teachings and zeal. What Bible student today 
is not thankful for the labors and writings of 
J. N. Darby, C. H. Mackintosh, and F. W. 
Grant? Mr. Samuel Ridout (as my teacher) 
was most patient and never complained of a 
pupil often overcome with drowsiness at the 
end of a day of hard work. 

He who enters the Christian life and hopes 
to grow must work; and no living man may 
delegate his life’s service to priest, minister, or 
other emissary. 


. How I Came to My Present Faire 35 

My first impulse in the nineties was to attack 
our distressing Baltimore social problems as 
one means of expressing my Christian citizen- 
ship, so I studied, investigated, then attacked 
the judicial legalization (utterly contrary to 
law) of prostitution in Baltimore, a shameful 
procedure by which our courts were continu- 
ally disgraced, our police force debauched, the 
people generally corrupted, and virtue held 
cheap, while the lives of the poor victims of 
man’s contemptible cowardice in shirking his 
obligations to build up a home were unspeak- 
able. Continual agitation of this question like 
that of other evils roused the dormant public 
conscience and resulted in the closing of all im- 
moral resorts under our zealous Christian gov- 
ernor, Philips Lee Goldsborough. Immediate 
improvement followed, but the full benefits of 
the act will only be realized when Christian 
men and women are willing to go forth to serve 
this class as our Lord himself served. 

A warm friendship and ten years of delight- 
ful service with the Rev. Dr. William Waters 
Davis, the protagonist of the Lord’s Day in 
Maryland, began about 1914. It would take a 
volume to describe our happy experiences as 
we traversed the state and visited every county 
in Maryland, speaking in every county seat and 
in innumerable other places, from three or four, 


36 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


to as many as ten times of a Sunday, working 
tandem to compass the more numerous engage- 
ments. My big-hearted colleague taught me 
many lessons in effective speaking, in zeal for 
a cause, and in fertility in expedients and or- 
ganization. One of my themes was the Chris- 
tian’s right use of the Lord’s Day, but usually 
I preferred to urge the need of a sturdy civic 
righteousness, or the duty of the Christian to 
saturate himself with the Word of God and parz 
passu to serve. But back of all efficient service 
must be a far deeper knowledge of the Bible, 
and a constant subjection to its disciplinary 
corrective precepts and judgments. 

T have finally become convinced that excellent 
and necessary and praiseworthy as are all the 
varied activities in the promotion of good 
works according as they are more or less de- 
monstrably Christian, and important as it may 
well be that Christians should aid, abet, and en- 
courage them, as they carry with them in all 
their services a savor of Christ’s presence, 
there remained yet one thing still more funda- 
mental in which I desired to enlist my services 
for the remainder of my life. I desired to 
exert every energy to arouse Christians to their 
need of a wider and deeper knowledge of the 
Word of God and so to draw them to a closer 
daily walk with Christ who is one with that 


How I Came to My Present Farta 37 


Word. To this end, for some years, it has been 
my effort to establish well-trained Bible teach- 
ers, forming classes wherever openings could 
be found, with the objective of deepening the 
spiritual lives of Christians and then of incit- 
ing the members of the classes themselves in 
turn to become new centers of the diffusion of 
the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At 
present, Miss Grace Hamilton of the Biblical 
Seminary in New York is deeply engaged in 
this evangelical interdenominational work. It 
is our fond hope, about, I believe, to be real- 
ized, that a revival in a quiet way is beginning 
in our midst among our young people,—in a 
measure corresponding to the great work now 
under way in Atlanta and the South, and show- 
ing signs of springing up shortly in many parts 
of our country, ‘‘when the winter is past, . . 
and flowers appear on the earth the time of the 
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the 
turtle is heard in our land.’’ 

May this brief biography serve to teach these 
simple lessons: 

1. That our Father is exceedingly gracious 
and always waiting to lead us in paths he has 
before ordained that we should walk in. 

2. That our Father shows the same infinite 
patience with us as individuals today that he 
manifested of old in the long centuries when 


38 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


his people were in captivity, in the wilderness 
and in the land. 

3. That the crying need of the world today is 
a more intimate, thorough knowledge of the 
Word of God, for the Bible is in reality the 
rarest of books. 

4, That while many good works are excellent, 
the supreme opportunity of life is to know 
Christ, and ever to know yet better him who is 
the express image and the effulgence of the 
glory of the Father, and ‘‘in whom are hid all 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’’ 

Please permit an affectionate appeal in this 
addendum: Fellow Christians, you who have 
families, hold family prayers daily and read 
and discuss some Scripture in the family at 
least twice a day, for the reward is a rich one. 

Alas, this review of my life step by step, for 
the first time, lays bare such woeful deficiencies 
and stirs up such keen regrets over wasted op- 
portunities, that I feel like one who has been 
sent to thrust the scythe into a harvest field 
rich with golden grain, and who returns in the 
evening to the Master of the Manor to lay at his 
feet but a scant handful. 

**O the depth of the riches both of the wis- 
dom, and knowledge of God! how unsearchable 
are his judgments, and his ways past finding 
out!’ 


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THE WHOLE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD 


KT me state at once that I am sure that 
the Bible is the Word of God, with an 
assurance greater than all other convictions 
directing my course in this brief earthly pil- 
grimage. Above all those maxims regulating 
the practical relations of life born of experi- 
ence, above those logical deductions from philo- 
sophical and scientific premises, I place the 
clear light of truth shining from the pages of 
the Bible. The Bible, the Word of God, is my 
one great guerdon on my homeward journey. 
But some one suggests, ‘‘You mean, of 
course, parts of the Bible, omitting those Old 
Testament myths of a nomadic people and al- 
lowing, too, for the haze which must envelop 
the traditions of early ages.’’ No, emphati- 
cally, I am happy to say I do not have to pare 
and trim and make exceptions and allowances; 
constant use has taught me to accept the whole 
Bible as God’s Word just as I took the letter 
received today as coming direct and without 
interpolations from my mother in Philadelphia. 
Do not err by thinking that by this I mean 


to offer myself as a ready and efficient inter- 
41 


42 A Sorentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


preter of all parts of the Word, or to suggest 
that there are no lingering difficulties to be 
solved. I am happy, however, to recall that 
with time and an ever-growing familiarity with 
its rich contents and their sweet harmonies, 
many knotty problems that once appeared in- 
soluble have already melted like morning mists, 
while the few that remain in no wise impede 
the sun’s rays as they flash from heaven to 
earth. My belief is not the offspring of a sud- 
den resolution, nor is it due to any determina- 
tion to take the easiest course or to choose the 
lesser of two evils,—a course rational perhaps 
but certainly not honoring the Word. Rather 
is it the outcome of the steady growth of a life- 
time and a little knowledge of the Word always 
being added to and ever enlarging the horizon 
of life, continually revealing things not known 
to those who do not feed daily upon the Word, 
and yet clear as crystal to him who comes as a 
child to learn from an all-wise loving Father. 

This positive belief and clear conviction, how- 
ever, have not been held without due considera- 
tion of the positions of opponents to any such 
confidence in the absolute authority of the 
Word. At one time, indeed, some thirty-five 
years ago, I paid close attention to the pro- 
nunciamentos of sundry critics, and was not a 
little distressed and disturbed, until I found the 


Tue WHOLE Brste tHE Worp or Gop 43 


key which let me out of the barren country 
where I had been disconsolately and vainly 
wandering, through a little wicket gate into a 
pleasant garden where flowers decked the sward 
and the trees bore all manner of pleasant fruits 
and the people of the land lived in peace, un- 
troubled by the turmoil round about. 

It happened on this wise. Finding I was 
getting nowhere, or rather that I was becoming 
spiritually mired by the criticisms, I deter- 
mined at last to take the brave course of set- 
tling my difficulties, like an honest scientist, by 
treating the Bible as I would any branch of 
science. If I propose to study botany, or as- 
tronomy, or geology, or microscopy, I take an 
accredited textbook and note the rules, and pro- 
ceed with my studies, always with the presump- 
tion that the rules are right, and that the book 
is a dependable guide; I resolutely shelve any 
preconceived notions of my own, and I apply 
the rules honestly to the matters arising for 
investigation. In this way, step by step, I make 
progress and gradually acquire a real knowl- 
edge of the particular science, ever finding my- 
self also in hearty accord with other scientists 
working in the same field. If the subject hap- 
pens to be mathematics, my elective, alas, at 
college, and my weakest point, I would never 
think, while still in the kindergarten of this 


44 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


greatest of all the sciences, of knitting my 
brows over all the puzzling symbols and ap- 
palling equations so abundant in the later 
pages, and at once rejecting the book, declaring 
that it is a piece of blessed foolishness, simply 
because I fail utterly to understand it all. 

And yet, some years ago I persuaded a friend 
at least to read the Bible and to give it a chance 
to speak for itself. He came back in a few 
weeks, with the remark that he had read it and 
could make no sense out of it. I asked, ‘‘ What 
did you read?’’ and he replied, ‘‘ Revelation’’! 

I reached, then, this point, ‘‘I will see care- 
fully just what the Bible says of itself, and will 
accept its own dictum as my working hypothesis 
in studying it.’ 

My discovery was as wonderful as it was 
simple and obvious. I found that God was 
named countless thousands of times in our 
Scriptures, and that their whole atmosphere is 
that of Heaven stooping down to speak to earth, 
that literally and emphatically it is declared 
that ‘‘the Lord spake’’ upwards of five hundred 
times, that men heard and received his mes- 
sages, and that he gave audible commands and 
men obeyed them. To ascertain more directly 
its claims, I looked up ‘‘W-O-R-D,’’ and found 
it about a thousand times. Why, there is no 
book in the world so vocal as the Bible! 


THe Wuowte BIste THE Worp or Gop 45 


He also who gave us the Book identified him- 
self with it as the creative word. ‘‘By the word 
of the Lord were the heavens made; and all 
the host of them by the breath of his mouth 
. . . for he spake, and it was done; he com- 
manded, and it stood fast’’ (Psa. 33); and ‘‘ By 
the word of God the heavens were of old’’ 
(2 Pet. 3). Men of old, with a more limited 
Scripture and with fewer advantages, certainly 
appreciated their blessings. Job declared, ‘‘I 
have esteemed the words of his mouth more 
than my necessary food’?! Would that we to- 
day felt as he did about it! Read now Psalm 
119, to see how God’s law, word, testimonies, 
counsels, judgments, and precepts were re- 
garded some three thousand years ago. ‘‘How 
sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter 
than honey to my mouth! . . . The law of 
thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of 
gold and silver.’’ 

Unto Isaiah God said, ‘‘I am the Lord thy 
God . . . and I have put my words into 
thy mouth.’’ Or what more emphatic than the 
Lord’s solemn asseveration: ‘‘As the rain 
cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and 
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, 
and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may 
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; 
so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my 


46 ‘A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it 
shall accomplish that which I please, and it 
shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.’’ 

In the New Testament I noted Christ’s decla- 
rations, ‘‘Scripture cannot be broken,’’ and 
‘‘Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one 
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all 
be fulfilled’’ (Matt. 5), as well as his solemn 
affirmation regarding his own words (Mark 
13). Our Lord’s weapon of defense against 
our arch enemy, Satan, was, ‘‘It is written,’’ 
**It is written,’’ ‘‘It is written’’; then gra- 
ciously to us, too, the Holy Spirit has given 
the same impregnable Scriptures he used, ‘‘ The 
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’’ 
The Spirit also declares that ‘‘ All scripture is 
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable’’ 
(2 Tim. 3). 

And lastly, but chiefest of all reasons, Christ 
the Son of God is himself the Word, which 
started to speak of him when God said, ‘‘ Let 
there be light,’’ and resumed again in the new 
creation when ‘‘In the beginning was the Word 
and the Word was with God and the Word was 
God,’’ and to insure the identification, ‘‘The 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”’ 

My course, the only sensible one, was thus 
made plain; so, like Christian smitten down by 
Apollyon, my hand grasped the sword of the 


THE WHOLE BisteE THE WorD or Gop 47 


Word and Apollyon and his hosts scurried 
away for a time. Trusting it as a child, I ap- 
plied it, and it worked, and it has continued to 
work ever since. In any real sense in which 
any Christian is a child of God, it is because 
he has been ‘‘born again; not of corruptible 
seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, 
which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh 
is as grass, and all the glory of man as the 
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the 
flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the 
Lord endureth for ever.’’ 

Right at this juncture let me add a greatly 
needed word of caution. This heavenly Word 
will not yield its sweets unless it is handled 
with due reverence. He who would ‘‘treat the 
Bible like any other book,’’ as men so glibly, 
and it seems almost flippantly, say, would bet- 
ter never open it, for he will find no food, no 
treasure,—the Spirit will have left its pages. 
Let this fundamental rule be graven on the 
tablets of the heart, ‘‘Ye that fear the Lord, 
trust in the Lord’’ (Psa. 115), ‘‘That thou may- 
est learn to fear the Lord thy God always’’ 
(Deut. 14). 

With that fruitful experience of testing the 
Word at its own valuation, reiterated as it has 
been all down the centuries, I became then and 
there a philosopher in a new sense, a Christian 


48 A Sctentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


pragmatist, for ‘‘pragmatism”’ is the hall mark 
of the thing that is practical and efficient; it is 
based on the fundamental dictum of C. S. 
Peirce, friend of William James who exploited 
it, that ‘‘every truth has practical consequences 
and these are the test of its truth.’’ Let me 
now ask, with the utmost confidence, where in 
this wide world is there any teaching like our 
Bible in its ‘‘practical consequences’’? Job’s 
friend Elihu went to that school, for he cried 
out, ‘‘ Who teacheth like him’’?? What author- 
ity, what other power is there given among men 
which when applied with an honest heart trans- 
forms the nature, ennobles the prostitute to 
love holiness and become an angel of mercy, 
raises the beggar and the sot from the gutter 
to set them among the princes of the earth? 
But as I write, this word ‘‘pragmatism’’ be- 
gins to echo through my mind as something 
strangely familiar; did not someone of yore, 
even before Peirce’s day, say something like 
this? I have it, in a writing more than eighteen 
centuries ago by another great pragmatist— 
this most excellent injunction, ‘‘Prove all 
things; hold fast that which is good,’’ and yet 
farther back a great Rabbi whose name was 
Wonderful, Counsellor, extended this invita- 
tion, ‘*Come and see’’; are not these last two 
ancient pregnant sentences the very sublimation 


THe WHOLE Brett THE Word or Gop 49 


of pragmatism, our most modern philosophy? 
Is it not, too, but the supreme wisdom and ex- 
perience of the world in its daily affairs? 

Where is there in this wide universe a teach- 
ing like Christ’s which when applied to the 
woes of this sin-distraught world dispels misery 
and composes all human difficulties, makes lov- 
ing friends of nations but recently bent on mu- 
tual destruction, and sets up a kingdom of 
righteousness and establishes standards of 
judgment tempered by mercy? We may ask 
and ask again, and we may seek, as many have 
done for a lifetime, but it is all in vain, for but 
one answer is possible, namely, that our God 
speaks authoritatively through the Bible, that 
textbook of heavenly therapeutics, with an 
ever-present power to heal and to compose all 
the vexed world’s disorders, and that nowhere 
else does he so speak; and that all his speech 
is identified with Christ, his Son, who appears 
unmistakably here. 

Christians who have journeyed far and who 
have taken God’s Word as their viaticum, their 
daily food, must often be conscious of the im- 
possibility of presenting adequately the full 
grounds of their faith to an inquirer. For ex- 
ample, as a parallel, how can I convincingly 
make clear to one who has never known love, 
why and how much I love my mother? How 


50 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


can one in a few brief sentences tell him who 
has always turned to his own way, and followed 
the desires of his own mind, why we love our 
Friend and Kinsman Redeemer, our daily 
Guide and Counsellor? Such reasoning from 
daily experiences and personal contacts is 
readily held valid in our estimations of men; 
then why not, I ask, in an appreciation of God 
and his Word? An argument of this kind, by 
its very nature unpresentable, is cumulative, 
and keeps on growing until wrought into the 
very fibers of one’s being, until its denial be- 
comes equivalent to the very negation of life. 
It is this that oftenest brings conviction to 
those who may be dumb when asked for any 
reasoned presentation of the grounds of their 
faith. 

I know that the Bible is the Word of God 
because in it I learn of his Holy Spirit of whom 
Christ said, ‘‘Ye know him; for he dwelleth 
with you, and shall be in you,’’ while the world 
cannot receive the Spirit of Truth ‘‘because it 
seeth him not, neither knoweth him,’’ wherein 
hes one of the paradoxes of the Christian life. 
The world is settled in its conviction, upholding 
the axiom that only ‘‘seeing is believing.’’ The 
Christian triumphantly exclaims, ‘‘Nay, my 
brother, in the realm of the affections and in 
the commerce of the Spirit, always, believing is 


Tur WHOLE BrstE tHE Worp or Gop 51 


seeing!’?’ And he turns gratefully to his 
Teacher as he recalls the promise, ‘‘ Ye have an 
unction from the Holy One, and ye know all 
things.’? We are thus dealing, my brother, my 
sister, with that greatest of gifts received of the 
Father after the ascension of Christ to take his 
seat at the right hand of the Majesty on High, 
the promise of the Holy Ghost, poured out 
abundantly like the refreshing rains, the Wit- 
ness under whose loving tutelage we grow con- 
tinually in the knowledge of Christ, that heri- 
tage of the Church who is too little known and 
claimed today. 

I believe that the Bible is the Word of God 
because of the very mystery of the Person in 
the Old Testament who at last stands revealed 
in the blaze of glory of Christ’s coming to de- 
stroy the works of the Devil and to bring to 
naught him that had the power of death; that 
is to say, the Devil. Step by step through the 
successive ages was he revealed ever more and 
more clearly, and yet when he came he was so 
different, so above all expectations, that none 
knew him until finally he opened up the Scrip- 
tures and the minds of men and pouring out 
his Holy Spirit as the efficient agent trans- 
formed all who heard and received the message, 
into new-born men. 

I accept the Bible as the Word of God be- 


52 A Screntiric MAn AND THE BIBLE 


cause of its own miraculous character, born in 
parts in the course of the ages and yet com- 
pleted in one harmonious whole, the continuous 
development and enlargement of that great 
taproot of all prophecy, the promise to the 
woman of One who was to be the Redeemer 
of our race and the curse of the serpent,—‘I 
will put enmity between thee and the woman, 
and between thy seed and her seed; it shall 
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel’’ 
(Gen. 3:15). Here from the mouth of God 
himself begins faith’s highway leading from 
the primal fall down through the ages to Christ 
and full redemption. Without the Bible, all 
God’s precious parables in Nature, his other 
book, are utterly lost, and nature, exploited 
merely for lucre or for the pride of science, is 
degraded and ruined. When all men duly honor 
the Bible we shall have a restored nature, smil- 
ing and beautiful and rich in spiritual lessons 
for anointed eyes, more precious than all ma- 
terial gains. 

I testify that the Bible is the Word of God 
because it is food for the spirit just as definitely 
as bread and meat are food for the body. We 
feel hunger and take food and are refreshed 
and go forth to work and to do that we could 
not accomplish without food. Likewise do we 
hunger for God. ‘*My soul longeth, yea, even 


Tur WHOLE BIBLE THE WorD oF Gop 53 


fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart 
and my flesh crieth out for the living God 

. . Blessed is the man whose strength is 
in thee.’’ And as our Lord said to the woman 
at the well, ‘‘ Whosoever drinketh of this water 
shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of 
the water that I shall give him shall never 
thirst. . . . If any man thirst, let him come 
unto me, and drink.’’ So we come to our 
Father’s table and find food and drink to the 
satisfying of the spirit, and as we feed reg- 
ularly we are transformed daily into the knowl- 
edge and likeness of him; and should any one 
seek to entice us to other tables, we turn won- 
deringly to our Host and say to him like Peter 
of old, ‘‘ Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast 
the words of eternal life.’? _ 

Its very paradoxes convince me that the 
Bible is the Word of God, for although they 
are often abundantly illustrated in our Father’s 
other book of nature, they are clearly opposed 
to the wisdom by which men of the world regu- 
late their lives. A Christian, however, notes 
them daily, rejoices in them, and continually 
discovers fresh ones for his guidance. 


To seatter is to increase. 
To withhold is to court poverty. 
Believing is seeing. 


54 A Screntiric Man anp THE BIBLE 


He who would gain his life must lose it. 

The chiefest honor is not to serve self but 
others. 

I yield up my liberty in order that I may 
be free. 

When I am weak, then am I strong. 

The richest are often those the world de- 
clares poor, and despises. 

The truly blessed are the meck, the poor in 
spirit, the peacemakers, and those who hun- 
ger and thirst after righteousness. 


For such maxims the world has no real use. 

The Bible appeals to me strongly as a phy- 
sician, because it is such excellent medicine; it 
has never yet failed to cure a single patient if 
only he took his prescription honestly. It is in 
the realm of spiritual therapeutics just what 
we so long to find for all our bodily ailments, a 
true panacea, a universal remedy; why, it even 
brings the dead to life! There is surely no 
other cure in the world for that pandemic lep- 
rosy of the soul called sin. The world is always 
running out of the bushes, crying Eureka, I 
have found a cure, but its failures are but piti- 
ful witnesses to man’s incompetence. 

Few of my scientific friends are aware that 
their science flourishes best in a land where the 
Bible is honored, for there alone is the guaran- 


Tre WHOLE BisteE THE Word or Gop 55 


tee of liberty and its attendant blessings. 
Where the Bible is dishonored, life becomes 
cheap and science an early victim, or it survives 
in a destructive form. My dear friend and sci- 
entist, our ‘‘science’’ 1s but folly when God is 
left out and if he is not in all our thoughts. 
What sense is there in boasting that science is 
our mistress to be cultivated for her own sake 
apart from all question of utility? What is 
there in the mere knowledge of the groupings 
of things and in the formulation of scientific 
dogmas of the laws governing matter that you 
are drawn to it so irresistibly? And why is 
such science any more worth your entire life’s 
energies than it would be in a haphazard way 
to throw a handful of sand on the floor and then 
to spend the rest of your life studying just how 
the grains happened to fall? 

If you are not a Christian, you do not know 
whence that impulse to investigate nature 
comes. Let me tell you that the inborn uncon- 
querable impulse to investigate nature is the 
too often unrecognized and unacknowledged 
tribute the spirit unconsciously pays to nature’s 
Creator, the dim but still imperative voice of 
the spirit harking back to him before whom she 
once walked in the Garden with clear vision. 
‘Alas, God calls, while like the muckrake we 
often gaze at the earth, failing to lift our eyes 


56 A Scientiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


heavenward to him who holds the crown poised 
over our heads, to him who alone is the Inter- 
preter of all things. I fear that with all our 
twentieth century boasting of progress, it is in 
reality a question between little science and big 
Science, between creature and Creator. ‘‘The 
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”’ 
Where then shall we land if we never even 
make a beginning? If we serve the creature 
rather than the Creator? Also as one has well 
said, those who profess to worship the Creator 
by means of the creature, soon come to lose 
sight of the Creator im the creature. 

The Bible, unlike any other book in the world, 
is a living Word, and as such is its own valiant 
defender. All the arguments of the best of 
men and all their skill in assembling them ef- 
fectively are but feeble apologies compared to 
the mordant power of the Word itself; the best 
human helps are those which have constant re- 
course to the Word. Does not everyone ob- 
serve that wherever the Bible is quoted, its 
words shine out like diamonds from the printed 
page? I do not decry human aids, for they are 
often excellent and needful, but I rejoice most 
when a beginner accepts and begins to study the 
Word with prayer; that puts the responsibility 
upon God. Hungry, disappointed older Chris- 
tians are always weak in the Word. 


Tue WHOLE BIBLE THE WorD oF Gop 57 


Is there any judgment yet to come for the 
sins of men? Is there in this universe a bar of 
justice higher than man’s? Upon the answers 
to such queries depends all that is worth pre- 
serving in what we call civilization. On these 
questions our Bible is ringing, clear, and defi- 
nite, utterly rejecting the prevalent notion that 
our concepts of sin and righteousness and judg- 
ment are merely evolutionary, while it lifts 
each of these fundamental notions up into the 
light of Heaven and the throne of God. Sin, 
righteousness, judgment, and mercy are named 
about twenty-five hundred times in the Bible, 
woven as they are into the warp and woof of 
its entire economy. Man’s notion of sin rises 
no higher than that of some hindrance in his 
convenient social adjustments, a sort of herd 
morality. The Word adjudicates sin as high 
treason against the very throne of God and of 
the moral order of his universe. Righteousness 
expresses God’s character in his moral govern- 
ment of his servants; judgment declares, ‘‘The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die,’’ while mercy 
stands without wringing her hands and weep- 
ing for the lost sinner. 

Is it possible to reconcile these conflicting 
elements and to save the sinner, lost and con- 
demned? The Bible is God’s only authentic 
answer,—impossible to conceive apart from 


58 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


this revelation of the Father’s great love. Men 
continually relegate their fellows to the scrap- 
heap as worthless, ‘‘But God, who is rich in 
mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved 
us, . . . hath quickened us together with 
Christ,’’ and saves the lost and hopeless. 

On such a revelation of the mystery of God 
and of his Christ I take my stand for time and 
eternity. Surely a heavenly light shines from 
its pages; joy, contentment, peace, and a happy 
family life are fostered wherever it is honored, 
and nations are established in righteousness. 
In Bible lands alone do little children get their 
full meed of affection and grow up sweet, pure, 
and lovable into noble manhood and woman- 
hood, and there alone, too, are parents honored 
and lessons of respect for constituted authority 
learned. The Bible alone brings the hungry 
soul into sweet concourse with the mind of God 
and so gives strength to bear trials and even 
to rejoice in misfortunes. Where else are the 
graces of humility, patience, gentleness, long- 
suffering, forbearance, patience exalted? It is 
the great revelation of God as man’s ‘‘'T'remen- 
dous Lover.’’ It is the book of broken hearts: 
God’s heart broken on the cross as he became 
the Saviour of the world; man’s heart broken 
as God’s Spirit reveals to him so great a love, 
and laid at the foot of the cross. 


Tar WuHowe Biste tHE Worp or Gop 59 


This, then, is the end of the Father’s great 
quest begun in the Garden at the fall, when the 
saddest ery ever heard was wrung from his 
breaking heart, ‘‘ Where art thou?’’—the voice 
of God seeking his lost son. At last he found 
him, and the search ended with the joyful ery, 
‘“‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased.’’ And that Son has ever since been 
busy bringing many other sons by new birth 
into glory. Reader, if you do not yet know hin, 
let me extend to you the great invitation in 
three simple words, ‘‘COME AND SEE.” For 
this is a ‘‘whosoever’’ message for whosoever 
will may come and share in all the joys for 
time and for eternity. 

Concluding, let me offer a brief syllabus of 
some reasons for accepting the Bible literally 
as the Word of God. 

It is the one book in the world which reveals 
a God infinitely above our own natural imagin- 
ings, worthy of our love and worship, and inex- 
haustible in his wonderful nature. 

The heart of man the whole world over ever 
hungers for God. St. Augustine cried, ‘‘Lord, 
thou hast made us for thyself and restless are 
our hearts until they rest in thee.’’? The Bible 
message is God’s perfect answer to that de- 
spairing ery of our Spirit-starved humanity. 

The Bible is a miracle—one coherent message 


60 A Sclentirico Man AND THE BIBLE 


written by God’s prophets over a period of 
centuries, comparable to nothing else on earth. 

It treats nature with a dignity and compre- 
hension comparable to no other book ever 
penned. 

It treats the book of nature, too, as a world 
of parables of the spiritual life, as the spirit 
of man, disclosed in his language of metaphor, 
trope, parable, and allegory has always unpre- 
meditatedly held it to be. 

Alone does it reveal sin as the act of a traitor 
in rebellion against God. 

In opposition to false science and false re- 
ligions it fixes the origin of sin at a particular 
time and in an individual, Satan, and at the 
very outset promises sin’s cessation forever 
when that arch traitor shall be rendered for- 
ever impotent; then eternal peace will reign. 

It reveals God’s righteousness in Christ, his 
judgment of sin, and his great mercy to every 
sinner who trusts him. 

It is an intimate revelation of Christ, God- 
man, the only Saviour of the world, to all his 
followers the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

Tt reveals God’s gift of his Holy Spirit—our 
ever-present Guide on our earthly pilgrimage. 

It is the one book in the world which is al- 
ways young and fresh and inspiring. 

The Bible has stood the persistent assaults 


THe WHOLE BIBLE THE Word oF Gop 61 


of Satan and all its enemies through all ages, 
and it goes on shining with ever-increasing 
luster. 

Whatever there is in civilization that is worth 
while rests on the Bible’s precepts. 

If only half the people would accept and ap- 
ply the Bible whole-heartedly myriads would 
be won to Christ and the terrors which threaten 
our nation today would all vanish, and peace 
with her attendant blessings would reign. 

Everywhere and in all its teachings the Bible 
claims to be the authoritative Word of God, and 
as such I accept it. Well has one said: 


This Book, this holy Book, on every line 
Marked with the seal of high divinity, 

On every leaf bedewed with drops of love; 
This lamp from off the everlasting throne, 
Mercy took down, and in the night of Time 
Stood, casting in the dark her gracious bow; 
And evermore beseeching men with tears 
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live. 


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THE DEITY OF CHRIST 


66 HAT eternal life, which was with the 
Father, and was manifested unto us.”’ 

The Bible in its opening paragraphs presents 
man to us as created by God directly and sepa- 
rately from the whole animal kingdom and as 
made in God’s own image and reflecting his 
character. But this blessed state vanished 
when sin and Satan entered, and man, unfit any 
longer to walk in intimacy with God, was driven 
out and the garden closed. This precious orig- 
inal fellowship with God a degraded race still 
denies and dishonors. Before taking up the re- 
stored relationship for all who come to him by 
the new and perfect way of faith, let us briefly 
examine the prevalent latter-day notions of 
man’s origin. 

Lost thus in sin and indifferent to his an- 
cestry, man traces it along the gamut of the 
animal creation through multiplied millions of 
years, until he arrives in an archean ooze of 
the paleozoic seas, where arriving at an im- 
passe, namely, how ever life got into the ooze, 
he leaps lightly over the infinite gulf which 
separates life from death and postulates that 

65 


66 A Sorentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


primordial organic eozoon as a natural product 
of the hitherto eternally dead matter, or he 
even looks up into the infinite space of the 
starry heavens for some microscopic life germs 
conveyed to earth on a meteoric chariot of fire. 
But, again, life being assumed (that ever fatal 
flaw in the materialistic argument), how next 
account for the subsequent miraculous changes 
in the animated bathybian slime, as it ever as- 
pires in a deliberately determinate upward di- 
rection in orthogenetic series, to culminate in 
man, so marvelously different from the rest of 
the animal kingdom in his endowment with a 
moral sense and with all his profound spiritual 
cravings? This clearly objective tendency of 
creation all theories of accidental variation and 
preservation of the fittest fail to account for, 
excepting one, and that is the concept of my 
old friend and teacher, distinguished herpetolo- 
gist and paleontologist, Professor Cope (I cite 
the Encye. Brit., 11th ed., vol. 27, p. 811): 
**E. D. Cope put such a line of argument in the 
most cogent fashion; the course of evolution, 
both in the production of variations and their 
selection, seemed to him to imply the existence 
of an originative conscious directive force, for 
which he invented the term ‘bathmism’ ’’ (the 
italics are mine). 

Cope felt, as many another great scientist, 


Tue Derry or CuHrist 67 


the profound and, may I add, almost hopeless 
mystery of the why and how of the whole thing 
and in his effort to clarify the situation, as it 
appears to some of us, gave the whole material- 
istic position away. The bathmic idea of the 
primitive nebula, rock, or slime was then to 
lead upwards and onwards in an uninterrupted 
progressive march (with innumerable side 
branches), in the direction of placing man upon 
earth, while at the same time preparing elabo- 
rately in animal, vegetable and mineral king- 
doms for man’s advent by storing the earth 
with its marvelous multitude of organic and in- 
organic materials that he alone of all the ani- 
mals could utilize, these being designed to fur- 
nish him with fine buildings, sculptures, elabo- 
rate clothing, and in later days with factories, 
railroads, telephones, telescopes, and radios, 
and the multiplied thousands of other what- 
nots, together with an infinity of objects to de- 
light and interest him, not omitting his spiritual 
perceptions,—all being evolved from the bath- 
mic purposes of that visitant meteorite, ancient 
rock, or protoplasmic ancestor. 

Of two difficulties, it is always wise to choose 
the lesser. Personally, I have no difficulty at 
all in believing the miracles recorded so graph- 
ically, thrillingly and impressively in the Bible, 
but this other miracle that life launched itself 


68 A Scientiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


somehow mysteriously on a dead globe, and 
once launched began to develop in a definite 
determinate direction without the guidance of 
a creator, is so vast in its demands that my 
mind balks. Let me state the dilemma in an- 
other way. Hither God created the primeval 
nebula, or the primitive stuff (Urstoff), initi- 
ated its own processes of condensation and re- 
volvings, heating and cooling, and building up 
of its chemical constituents, and so ultimately 
created us, with our capacity for love and all 
our longings for Him, and at last gave us the 
Bible and faith and our sure hope of eternal 
life in Christ, or that eternal unconscious 
nebula pregnant with all the possibilities of the 
future and all the complexities of the modern 
universe in posse, step by step produced them 
in esse. I would lose my mind, I think, if I 
tried to believe the latter fatalistic hypothesis, 
but I do find it simple and natural and easy to 
accept ‘‘In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth.’’ So of the two diffi- 
culties, God or no God, I joyfully choose the 
former; yea, ‘‘God is the strength of my heart, 
and my portion for ever.’’ 

Now grant me this simple comprehensive 
postulate, and all I ask follows naturally: ‘‘In 
the beginning God’’; man made in his image; 
a ‘‘must needs be’’ in the coming in of sin; sin 


Tue Derry or Curist 69 


introduced into this world by an evil rebellious 
spirit; the fall of man; God’s promise of re- 
demption and all its foreshadowings in the Old 
Testament; in the New, God himself manifested 
in the flesh upon earth, come to destroy sin and 
break the power of its originator; God so re- 
vealed in his infinite perfections, and above all 
**God is love’’; sin forever put away; the resto- 
ration of all things, and eternal peace amid the 
glories of a new heaven and earth worthy of 
the gigantic episode we have just been consid- 
ering in God’s vast universe. Why, the very 
meditation upon such a program commands as- 
sent with the trembling query, ‘‘Is it possible 
that I, overwhelmed by the consciousness of my 
sinful nature, may live to enjoy such a grand 
denouement ?’’ 

The whole Christian program we have just 
outlined hinges upon the deity of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Let us, therefore, examine the 
guarantees of this decisive factor from two di- 
rections: Is the deity of Jesus taught in the 
Bible? What difference is observable in my 
life consequent upon such a belief? 

First of all, then, what does the Bible say 
about Christ in prophecy in the Old Testament 
and in fulfilment in the New? ‘A redeemer was 
promised Eve, one able to overcome Satan, 
whose head he would crush; and in all their 


70 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


parts the old Scriptures thrill with the unseen 
but shortly to be revealed presence of a mys- 
terious person,—a revelation growing in 
majesty as the centuries roll on; of the tribe of 
Judah; a prophet greater than Moses (Deut. 
18); a king to sit upon David’s throne forever 
(Psa. 2; 89: 27-29; 45, ef. with Heb. 1:8); Mes- 
siah, God’s Son (Psa. 2); God’s Passover lamb 
(ef. Exod. 12 and John 1:29) come to bear the 
sins of the world (cf. Isa. 53 with John 3:16 
and Acts 8:30-35). And yet, ‘‘What is his 
name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst 
tell’? (Prov. 30:4). 

Mysterious in his origin, ‘‘a priest for ever 
after the order of Melchizedek,’’ of whom ‘‘ The 
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right 
hand’’ (Psa. 116), Jehovah’s fellow (Zech. 
13:7). Of him Isaiah wrote (ch. 9), ‘‘ For unto 
us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and 
the government shall be upon his shoulder: and 
his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The 
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his govern- 
ment and peace there shall be no end, upon the 
throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to or- 
der it, and to establish it with judgment and 
with justice from hence forth even for ever.’’ 
In chapter 7, he is Immanuel, ‘‘ which being in- 
terpreted is, God with us’’ (Matt. 1: 23). 


Tue Derry or Curist 71 


But what has the New Testament to say as 
we come down to the time of the presentation 
of the Messiah and the proclamation of his Gos- 
pel? What did the spiritually minded Jew at 
that time understand as to the person and char- 
acter of ‘‘Him who was to come’’? 

Ask John the Baptist (John 1:34), and he 
eries, ‘‘I saw, and bare record that this is the 
Son of God.”’ 

What sayest thou, Nathanael? ‘‘Rabbi, thou 
art the Son of God’’ (John 1:49). 

And you disciples after companying with 
him? Peter replies for all, ‘‘Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God.’’ 

John the evangelist, why did you write your 
Gospel? ‘‘These are written, that ye might be- 
lieve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; 
and that believing ye might have life through 
his name.’’ 

Mary through Luke reveals to us that fact 
most essential to our comprehension of sharing 
deity with the Father, the manner of his con- 
ception: ‘‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee: therefore also that holy thing 
which shall be born of thee shall be called the 
Son of God,’’ and ‘‘He shall be great, and shall 
be called the Son of the Highest . . . the 
Son of God.’’ 


72 A Screntiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


Zacharias sings (Luke 1: 68, 70), ‘*‘ Blessed be 
the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and 
redeemed his people . . . as he spake by 
the mouth of his holy prophets’’; and Zacha- 
rias’ own son, John the Baptist, was to ‘‘be 
called the prophet of the Highest: for thou 
shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare 
his ways.’’ 

What a galaxy of witnesses; surely further 
proof is superfluous, and we might rest the case 
right here as proved. Jesus died because of 
his special definite claim of Sonship at his trial 
when the high priest asked, ‘‘I adjure thee by 
the living God, that thou tell us whether thou 
be the Christ, the Son of God.’’ He answered, 
‘*Thou hast said’’ (Matt. 26). 

I recently wrote briefly about the use my 
friend, Dr. W. W. Keen, made of the word 
‘‘worship’’ in the Gospels as proving the deity 
of our Lord, urging that it had no such clear 
and limited significance in Greek as it has at 
last by custom attained in English. I do, how- 
ever, think that the Doctor is right in this, 
namely, that our Lord, and he alone, repeatedly 
received the profound reverence implied in the 
eastern posture of a suppliant at the feet, im- 
plying varying degrees of submission, rever- 
ence, and worship. 

Jesus means Jehovah my Saviour, for ‘‘It is 


Tue Derry or Curist 73 


he himself who shall save his people from their 
sins.’? Can he who raised Lazarus dead four 
days be less than God? Was or was not that 
majestic sufferer God, who had power to lay 
down his life upon the cross, a voluntary sacri- 
fice for sin, was buried, and in three days took 
it again and broke the power of death by his 
resurrection, who then companied at intervals 
with his disciples forty days, discoursing upon 
the kingdom of Heaven, while tested as to the 
reality of his substantial appearance by many 
infallible proofs, who at last ascended into 
Heaven and took his seat at the right hand of 
the Majesty on high and poured out his Holy 
Spirit upon believers? And what witness more 
important than that of this same Spirit pro- 
claiming him at Pentecost, ‘‘Jesus of Naza- 
reth,’’ ‘*David’s Lord,’’ ‘‘God’s Holy One,’’ 
their ‘‘risen Messiah,’’? ‘‘That same Jesus 
. - + both Lord and Christ,’? henceforth 
Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, and Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

What great lesson did Paul learn when smit- 
ten to the ground by the vision of him in his 
heavenly glory? ‘‘Straightway he preached 
Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of 
God’? (Acts 9:20). To the Corinthians he 
writes of the ‘*mystery, even the hidden wis- 
dom, which God ordained before the world unto 


74 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


our glory: which none of the princes of this 
world knew: for had they known it, they would 
not have crucified the Lord of glory’’ (1 Cor. 
2:7,8). Paul designates Jesus as the Son, and 
the Son of God, twenty-four times in the Acts 
and the Epistles. 

John’s last message in his epistle is a ery of 
warning against any denial of the relationship 
of Christ to God as his own Father as the great 
latter-day heresy, ‘‘He is antichrist, that de- 
nieth the Father and the Son’’; and ‘‘ Whoso- 
ever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, 
God dwelleth in him, and he in God’’; also, 
‘*Who is he that overcometh the world, but he 
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”’ 
In no summary should one omit the testimony 
of the fifth, the divinity chapter of John’s Gos- 
pel, where our Lord himself cites six testi- 
monies to his sonship: His own claim, the wit- 
ness of John the Baptist, the witness of the 
Father, his works, the testimony of the Scrip- 
tures, and Moses’ testimony. I only cite fur- 
ther the ‘‘I am’s’’ of this Gospel, as identify- 
ing him with Jehovah in his infinite, unfathom- 
able nature; note but one, ‘‘Before Abraham 
was, I am,’’ and reflect upon it. 

Abundant and overwhelming as these evi- 
dences are, we may not hope to convince the 
skeptical by clear logic alone. Mere human 


Tue Deiry or CHRIST 75 


wisdom can never avail to compass the things 
of God, for is it not written, ‘‘ And they shall 
be all taught of God,’’ and ‘*‘The natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: 
for they are foolishness unto him: neither can 
he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned’’ (1 Cor. 2:14); also, ‘‘No man can say 
that Jesus is the Lord, save by the Holy 
port’? {1 Cors12:3:) 

This Spirit of love ever waits to draw us to 
Christ, the Son of God. The fault of any de- 
lay to acknowledge his claim rests not upon 
Him but with us, as he has said, ‘‘ Ye will not 
come to me, that ye might have life’’; while to 
the willing ones he says, ‘‘ But ye have an unc- 
tion from the Holy One, and ye know all 
things.’’ ‘‘Ye need not that any man teach 
you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of 
all things’’ (1 John 2:27). ‘‘He that believeth 
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself’’ 
(1 John 5:10). 

Let me not, however, appear to depreciate 
the high potency of a God-inspired reason in 
our Christian life, for the objects of our faith, 
though above the discovery of reason, yet when 
revealed pre-eminently commend themselves to 
a purified reason. Also when the ebb of faith 
is low through physical or other infirmity, we 
need constantly to hold fast by the will backed 


76 A Sctentiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


up by reason. The early registration of an 
emphatic decision by the will at a time when 
the light shines brightly is a tower of strength 
later on in the darkness. The maturer the 
Christian, the more does he discover a heavenly 
reasonableness in all he finds and believes in 
the Word of God. 

What difference does such a belief make 
to me? 

It is of little moment whether I affirm in a 
ereed that Christ is the Son of God or whether 
I deny it, if my belief remains a mere assevera- 
tion, a matter of words, which fails profoundly 
to affect my whole life. My Father will never 
honor an intellectual assent to a mere proposi- 
tion, for his ery from Adam down through the 
ages ever is, ‘‘My son, give me thine heart’’; 
heart and head must both be enlisted in his 
service, heart taking the pre-eminence. So I 
say, what difference then does my belief make? 

First and foremost, I know about sin and see 
sin in my nature and in the world as I never 
could have understood it apart from Christ on 
the cross. Without Christ, the Son of God, I 
never could have understood sin as an act of 
rebellion against the very throne of God, in- 
finite in its consequences; this the experience 
of a long life confirms. Again, I had never 
known the meaning of that most precious word 


Tue Derry or Crist 77 


righteousness, nor of the righteousness of God 
as manifested in his Son, nor of God’s grace, 
of faith, or infinite love, all of which hinge on 
the deity of Jesus. These and many other 
words profoundly affecting my life have come 
through the Bible to have new meanings. 
‘Apart from the Bible, they have little if any 
meaning, while the Bible itself is saturated with 
these wonderful spiritual conceptions, enabling 
us poor sinners to share the very mind of God 
on these deep questions. 

My narrow horizon, once halting at the mar- 
gin of a grave, is now through Christ, the Son 
of God, limitless in its expanse. Why, I lift 
my head by night with confidence and eager ex- 
pectation and tell Arcturus, Vega, Aldebaran, 
Altair, Deneb, and Saiph, and all the heavenly 
hosts that in due time I shall visit and know 
them one by one in the ages to come, follow 
them as they grow old and then be present at 
the birth of the glories of a new heavens and a 
new earth. 

The precious parables of nature, separated 
from Christ’s creative hand, lose their mean- 
ing, and the imagination which plays with 
tropes, metaphors, and parables giving light- 
ness and beauty and grace to our language 
raising it out of the deadly commonplace would 
then appear only as a sort of meaningless fri- 


78 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


volity. Why, leave God out and all real poetry 
disappears. Nor, apart from this faith, would 
we feel the thrill of the majesty of the moun- 
tains, of God’s lofty storehouses of ice and 
eternal snows, of the glory of his vast pano- 
ramic canvases painted on our evening skies, 
in the heaven-driven chariots with their plashy 
lightnings and the bursting storms when man 
and all created things seek shelter. Trials, sor- 
rows, suffering, and patience, losing their 
meaning and robbed of the blessing with which 
he comforts and confirms his children in their 
faith in him, would leave only a residuum of 
bitterness and a memory of galling afflictions 
and nothing more. Of all the countless millions 
born of women in all the ages of the world, the 
Son of God alone came ‘‘to appoint unto them 
that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty 
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar- 
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”’ 
(Isa. 61:3). 

Without Christ, I lose God as my Father in 
any particular and real sense such as I now 
have through adoption by the redeeming power 
of his blood. In John’s Gospel, the word 
‘*father’’ occurs one hundred and thirty-four 
times, and with the exception of eleven is used 
of the sonship of Christ—ten of the eleven 
refer to the fathers in the wilderness, and to 


Tue Derry or CHRIST 79 


Abraham, and to Satan as the father of the 
unbelieving Jews; the last of the eleven is in 
20:17, where Jesus having lived, died, and risen 
again, having accomplished his work, sends this 
special message to his followers, coupling them 
with himself in the relationship to the Father 
as the great and final result of all his efforts: 
‘‘Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I 
ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and 
to my God, and your God.’’ 

If, therefore, Christ is not the Son of God, 
I lose my daily companionship with him and I 
have no access to the Father nor any guidance 
of his Holy Spirit. And shall I lag in my faith 
behind the Roman centurion at the cross in ex- 
claiming, ‘‘Truly this was the Son of God’’? 

If Christ is not God, prayer, so necessary to 
the spirit’s life, becomes meaningless, and fails 
to pass beyond the sound of my voice. 

Life’s greatest blessings fade away, for the 
Son of God alone sanctifies all earthly relation- 
ships, his blessed gifts of mother, father, sis- 
ters, brothers, friends, all these laid upon the 
altar and given back ennobled and illumined 
with the light of that eternity into which our 
new-born spirits are launched. 

No longer ean I live the blessed life of faith, 
knowing my Father’s love to be vastly greater 
than all my circumstances at all times. 


80 A Sorentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


No longer have I the clear assurance that 
righteousness and love will prevail, indeed have 
already prevailed ever since sin was judged 
upon the cross, or that in a little while he who 
is to come will come again and set up his glori- 
ous and everlasting kingdom, when righteous- 
ness will cover the earth as the waters cover 
the seas, when ‘‘in that day shall there be upon 
the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE 
Lorp; and the pots in the Lord’s house shall be 
like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot 
in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness 
unto the Lord of hosts’’ (Zech. 14). 

No longer shall I find already here on earth 
my Ephesian portion in the heavenlies with 
him, and begin here and now to live on the old 
corn of the land even as I pass through the 
wilderness in my earthly pilgrimage. Life 
ceases to be a pilgrimage,—a home-going, and 
but a poor unsatisfying end in itself. 

And what of all the precious lives poured out 
upon the altar of faith by the noble band of 
martyrs and missionaries? All, all in vain! 
Nay, if Jesus is not the Son of God, then the 
world’s wisdom becomes the rule of life, ‘‘ Let 
us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we 
die,’’ and the world’s greatest epitome of that 
wisdom is the unutterably sad Rubaiyat of 
Omar Khayyam, the grave of all hope. 


Tur Derry or CuHRIst 81 


Friend of mine, accredited exponent among 
men of earthly science, faith in Christ as God is 
a far higher, a heavenly wisdom (science) 
which you may not put into a crucible and then 
command ‘‘reveal thyself,’’ for it involves in- 
finite love, the sum of all the loves of the uni- 
verse and yet vastly more. Be honest with 
this as with your earthly science and put the 
hypothesis to its own proper test and ‘‘Come 
and see.’? 


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IV 
THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


a 


ATOAEL AUT 





LV, 
THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


S A great fundamental doctrine of the 
Christian faith in the Apostles’ time and 

in the century following, incorporated in the 
traditions of the Church and proclaimed in her 
written documents, the virgin birth was never 
questioned by those who professed to believe 
the Scriptures. Justin Martyr in A. D. 140 de- 
clared that the virgin birth was the universal 
belief to be accepted by everyone calling him- 
self a Christian. It is an integral part of all 
ancient documents of the Gospels of Matthew 
and of Luke, as Harnack, leader of the higher 
critics, acknowledges, though at the same time, 
as one has said, he ‘‘naively suggests that some 
way be devised by which the passages referring 
to it can be legitimately omitted’’! It is in the 
heart of the Apostles’ Creed, which reaches 
back into the first half of the second century, 
representing the faith of all early Christians, 
and was only denied on a priori grounds by 
such philosophizing sects as the Ebionites, who 
denied the divinity of Christ, and the Docetists, 
who took the other extreme and denied him a 
real humanity. His combined deity and hu- 

85 


86 A Scorentiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


manity was the thrilling mystery of all the Old 
Testament, while Spirit-filled men in all ages, 
like Nathanael and Simeon, doubtless have 
known that in the Messiah God would in some 
way be clearly manifested in and through our 
humanity, although the manner of his coming 
remained a mystery. 

The references to the virgin birth in Genesis 
3:15, Isaiah 7:14, and Jeremiah 31: 22 neither 
obviously nor necessarily refer to the Christ 
as born of a woman or of a virgin exclusive of 
an earthly father, but the moment the fact is 
revealed by the Spirit of God it is at once dis- 
covered that the language readily admits of 
and is exalted by such an interpretation; thus 
with the facts before one, the ancient purpose 
long hidden in the counsels of God becomes 
plain. It appears to me also that the dignity of 
such a revelation is greatly enhanced, chaste 
and sacred as it must needs be, when the full 
understanding follows the event. Matthew in- 
spired by the Holy Spirit translates the He- 
brew word ‘‘almah,’’ meaning a young woman, 
in Isaiah 7: 14, by the Greek word ‘‘parthenos,’’ 
meaning virgin; Luke also uses the same Greek 
word when he tells us that Gabriel was sent ‘‘to 
a virgin espoused to a man whose name was 
Joseph.’’ The Old Testament with this blessed 
truth revealed becomes at once a new book, a 


THe Vircin Birts 87 


fresh treasure house of the mind and purposes 
of God; every page becomes illuminated with 
this new and high conception which confers 
added dignity and meaning to its events as they 
develop through the centuries toward the work- 
ing out of his plans. 

While but one clear New Testament state- 
ment was needed to reveal the fact of the virgin 
birth, our Father in his infinite mercy has 
vouchsafed us two complementary records as 
the ground of our perfect assurance in a mat- 
ter so vital to faith. These accounts are those 
of the first chapters of Matthew and Luke, the 
former from the standpoint of Joseph, the hus- 
band, who gives the child his legal status and 
who names him Jesus, Saviour; and the latter, 
clearly Mary’s account of the divine overshad- 
owing and the implantation of the divine seed 
by the Holy Spirit. Read both and carry them 
ever in mind in studying the Scriptures, for an 
analysis detached from the synthesis of Scrip- 
ture may but serve to mar the ‘‘sobriety, lofty 
_ purpose, and spiritual beauty of the narra- 
tives,’? and as Bishop Moule of Durham has 
further said, ‘‘No isolated references can prop- 
erly represent a subject so deeply interwoven 
into the very texture of the Gospel.”’ 

Luke, the first Christian doctor, his calling 
being much in evidence in the medical terms 


38 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIrELE 


he so often uses, was a true scientist, saturated 
with the spirit of his profession, careful and 
accurate as an investigator, and fully cognizant 
of the vital importance of the facts he was 
about to relate. He gives us, I believe, in his 
first forty-two words in the Greek, eighty-two 
in the English, without the slightest observable 
effort, the largest quantum of certainty and as- 
surance ever expressed in equal compass in any 
language. Let us pause for a moment that we 
may receive a deeper impression, as Luke pro- 
ceeds—to set forth in order a narrative—of 
things most surely believed among us—deliv- 
ered over unto us—by eyewitnesses—from the 
beginning—ministers or servants of the Word 
—It seemed good to me, too, having had a per- 
fect understanding—of all things—from the 
very first—to write unto thee in order—most 
excellent Theophilus (loved of God, and so we 
all are also Theophilites—compare John 3:16). 

Where, I submit, in the world can one find 
more simply and naturally stated a greater and 
more justifiable assurance, as well as more com- 
petent testimony, in a matter exceeding all 
other earthly interests in importance? Then, 
fearless as a scientist should ever be, Luke does 
not hesitate to begin his record with two well- 
ascertained miraculous events, namely, the 
manner of the birth of the Messiah, the Son of 


THe Virein Birte , 89 


David, and that of his servant, John the Bap- 
tist. It is significant to note the appropriate- 
ness of these declarations in that Matthew and 
Luke alone deal with our Lord’s childhood, 
while Mark and John have nothing on this head 
as it is apart from their purposes in writing. 

The logical course for those who reject these 
clear and positive declarations, integral parts 
of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, is to join 
those old Docetists referred to above who re- 
jected our Lord’s human nature. To do this, 
one must obliterate from memory the unim- 
peachable evidences to the contrary of the 
apostle and the physician, and then perhaps 
strive to erect a doctrine on the first verse of 
Mark, where Jesus is declared to be the 
‘‘Christ, the Son of God.’’? Or there remains 
the alternative of the Ebionites, and of the 
Socinians, who over fourteen hundred years 
later denied the divine nature. Names may 
change, but the weapons of the enemy are ever 
the old ones used centuries ago. Satan goes 
about like a roaring lion and is diligent, but he 
is not very resourceful, being for the most part 
only a poor old imitator; the trouble is that we 
are more easily entrapped than a silly fowl, for 
‘‘Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight 
of any bird.’’ 

The Bible being a living book, its right use 


90 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


soon genders conviction, and so as I read, un- 
sophisticated and as a child, these lofty and 
spiritually beautiful narratives drive arrows of 
conviction deep into my heart, first arousing 
wonder, then adoration and absolute faith, and 
then follow the varied fruits of the life, while 
henceforth the truths vouchsafed by the Spirit 
of God are discerned by direct vision as one 
beholds the sweet light of the sun. If we have 
absorbed this great truth already in childhood, 
it is confirmed daily as one grows continually 
better acquainted with the Scriptures. The 
virgin birth is the great key to the Bible store- 
house. If I reject the virgin birth, the New Tes- 
tament becomes a dead, man-made letter, re- 
counting the well-intentioned imaginings of hon- 
est but misguided men. Those who continue to 
carp at the supposed ‘‘reticence’’ of Mark and 
John to dwell explicitly upon the virgin birth 
must take it upon themselves to determine for 
God our Father how many times he must repeat 
a matter before they will admit it; forsooth a 
dangerous role for a homunculus flashing out of 
the night of eternity upon the earth for a few 
seconds, only to vanish like a wraith of the 
morning mist. 

But I do positively affirm that Mark and John 
and Paul, while not entering unnecessarily into 
the particular circumstances, are yet so replete 


Tue Vircin Birts 91 


with this blessed doctrine of the virgin birth 
that I am astonished that this fact is not more 
regularly recognized and insisted upon. In 
Mark he is called both Son of God and Son of 
man, while the Father’s voice testifies from 
Heaven at his baptism, ‘‘Thou art my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased.’’ Even the 
affrighted unclean spirits bear testimony that 
he is the Holy One of God, and the Son of God, 
while all knew that he was the son of Mary 
living among them. Let then the burden of the 
proof rest on him who objects, and let him ex- 
plain how in any other than the simple plain 
Biblical way Jesus could have been both Son 
of God and Son of man. 

John in the Gospel, in his First Epistle, and 
in Revelation, is undeniably clear as to Jesus’ 
eternal existence and his deity; repeatedly we 
hear Jesus in John’s Gospel use the ‘‘I am,’’ 
the Old Testament name of God. John knew 
Mary, Jesus’ earthly mother, from the first, 
and to his care she was entrusted at the cross, 
and yet John avers that he wrote his Gospel 
‘“That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God; and that believing ye might 
have life through his name.’’ Again let me 
repeat it, John knew well that Mary was Jesus’ 
mother, and he it is who also reveals to us 
‘‘That eternal life, which was with the Father, 


92 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


and was manifested unto us.’’ It is he, too, 
who in this First Epistle says warningly, ‘‘He 
is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the 
Son.’’ Let all who are inclined to be skeptical 
as to the virgin birth give heed to this Hpistle 
written in large measure to prepare men for, 
and to combat, this latter-day deadly heresy of 
denying the Christ his heavenly birthright. 

And if Paul was not aware of the virgin birth, 
how otherwise shall we explain his statement 
in the second chapter of Philippians that, being 
in the form of God, Christ laid aside the insig- 
nia of his divine majesty and assumed the form 
of a servant and was made in the likeness of 
men (as born of the virgin Mary) and even died 
upon the cross for us sinners whom he had 
come to save? So saturated are Paul and John 
with this great, underlying, vivifying truth of 
his deity that one might more easily maintain 
from their writings that, while Christ was in- 
deed God, he probably was not man at all! 

He who violently wrenches the narratives of 
the virgin birth from the New Testament in 
order to be consistent must also uniformly ex- 
punge all other miracles and with them the 
atoning death, the resurrection, the ascension, 
and the present mediatorial office of our Lord, 
as well as the presence here on earth today of 
his vicegerent, the Holy Spirit, whose person- 


Tue Vircin Birt 93 


ality and blessed office then dwindle to an in- 
definable ‘‘influence.’? ‘The virgin birth is 
gratefully confessed today, now some nineteen 
centuries after the event, by the Greek church, 
by all Catholics, and by all the evangelical 
churches of the world. In the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, where the daily services are fully 
used, this confession is repeated over a 
thousand times every year, calculates Father 
Hughson. 

Rob Christ of his deity, and every true Chris- 
tian will at once ery out of a breaking heart, 
‘‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know 
not where they have laid him,’’ and never again 
will one be moved by God’s Spirit to exclaim, 
**My Lord and my God.’’ 

A mere assent to the doctrine of a virgin 
birth as an article contained in a familiar and 
time-honored creed means but little to him who 
repeats it. What, then, ought such a faith 
mean to the Church and to the individual? To 
give it up would mean, I think, just such a ter- 
rible wrench as one would experience when he 
learned that the mother-care and love which 
had enshrined his life was after all but that of 
a foster parent. Who can describe the revul- 
sion of feeling experienced by one from whose 
heart was snatched this precious light, this re- 
vealing key to the Scriptures? The denial of 


94. A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


the virgin birth robs Christ of the glory he 
shares with the Father (Heb. 1 and 2). To rob 
Christ of his humanity is to place God again 
at an infinite distance from sinners. If this is 
not true, then there can never be a reconcilia- 
tion of all creation to God and a final undoing 
of all sin. Then, I have lost my elder brother, 
my Kinsman-Redeemer. Nor is there any 
longer a God-given representative head of our 
race, who has bound the strong man and de- 
stroyed his works; there is no apostle and great 
high priest at the throne of God. If Christ is 
not God, then worship is denied him, and I have 
no Saviour to talk to in prayer. And, the cross, 
that age-long symbol of the passion of God for 
a lost world, loses its meaning. 

But enough of these negations, for the virgin 
birth is a fact fully established by competent 
testimony and abundant collateral evidences, 
believed by men all through the ages as a neces- 
sary factor in their salvation secured by an 
ever-living, ever-acting Saviour, viewed with 
wonder by angels in Heaven and acknowledged 
by the Father. To deny the virgin birth because 
of its miraculous nature is to deny the validity 
of all Scripture, which is but a continuous 
series of revelations of the mind and acts of 
God, and as such is miraculous throughout. 


V 
THE BLOOD ATONEMENT 





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V 
THE BLOOD ATONEMENT 


‘‘When I see the blood, I will pass over you”’ 
(Exod. 12:18, 23). 

“*Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the 
place whereon thow standest is holy ground’’ 
(Exod. 3:5). 


N LOOKING forward to this brief statement 
of the great doctrine of the blood atone- 
ment so conspicuously written on all the pages 
of the Bible I had anticipated some freedom in 
presenting a matter so vital in the plan of our 
salvation. Contrary to my expectation, how- 
ever, I have found it difficult and resistant to 
many efforts. At last I found, I feel sure, the 
cause of my failures, which lay more in the 
heart than in the head. It is far from the truth 
merely to enunciate clearly the nature and 
varying purposes of the sacrifices in the Old 
Testament and then to point out their fulfilment 
in the New, for the sacrifices in both Old and 
New reveal God above all else as our ‘‘tremen- 
dous Lover.’’ The sacrifices represent the ful- 
ness of the outpouring of his boundless love, 
never wholly to be comprehended in all the ages 


of eternity. 
97 


98 ‘A. ScrentiFic MAN AND THE BIBLE 


The place therefore whereon we stand is holy 
ground; let us approach it in a spirit of rever- 
ence, and with hearts filled with thanksgiving, 
praise and love for him who here reveals to his 
children the mysteries of a redemption accom- 
plished at such an infinite cost. Let us also be 
constantly mindful, as we turn the pages of 
both Old Testament and New, that in our 
Father’s view every page is besprinkled with 
the blood of the cross, and that every Jewish 
sacrifice of old depicted the sufferings and 
death of his Son as a fact already accomplished. 


Universal sin in the world, everywhere felt 
and in one way or another recognized, has 
clearly placed a vast gulf between God and 
man. And yet knowing that God alone can 
satisfy our heart-hunger, how various and how 
futile have been the vain efforts to bridge the 
infinite distance! 

Among the heathen, sacrifices have ever been 
the common way of approach to an offended 
deity, in all races and all ages, with the idea of 
appeasing wrath. But no such perversion is 
found in the Bible. 

Elihu, friend of Job, knowing more of God, 
utters his lonely ery, ‘‘Teach us what we shall 
say unto him; for we cannot order our speech 
by reason of darkness.’’ 


Tue Bioop ATONEMENT 99 


David cries with confidence born of personal 
experiences with God. ‘‘Teach me thy way, O 
Lord, and lead me in a plain path’’ (Psa. 27). 
And lastly, when the darkness breaks and the 
Sun of Righteousness arises, Jesus declares, 
**T am the light of the world,’’ and ‘‘I am the 
way, the truth, and the life,’’ and ‘‘If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.’’ 

And all who have come to him bear witness 
to these truths and ask for no other waters to 
assuage their thirsty souls. 

Originally I suppose the sacrifices of the 
heathen and those of the Jewish people were 
identical in their origin, arising from some 
earlier revelation. Be this conjecture as it may, 
it is at once evident that the sacrifices in the 
Bible are utterly different in their nature and 
intent from those of all the world around Pales- 
tine. Let us therefore pass over the heathen 
ceremonies and consider only those which form 
a part of the pure revelation of God, as care- 
fully and minutely described in the first three 
books of the Bible. 

That sacrifice is central and controlling in 
the Biblical doctrine of salvation is made em- 
phatically clear by the fact that the very words 
‘*sacrifice’’ and ‘‘blood’’? occur about seven 
hundred times. 

The maxim of the law from which all else 


100 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


flows in this connection is found in Exodus 
twelve, in the brief statement, ‘‘ When I see the 
blood, I will pass over you,’’ and in Hebrews 
nine, ‘‘almost all things are by the law purged 
with blood; and without shedding of blood is no 
remission,’’ statements uttered by Jews sepa- 
rated by an interval of fifteen hundred years 
and binding in one God’s revelation. 

In the time of the patriarchs the head of the 
family, as a priest, offered the sacrifices. I 
venture to state my conviction that in the whole 
Bible there is no other picture or type of the 
love of God for his Son, and the sacrifice in- 
volved in sending him to earth to die for our 
sins, equal to that of Abraham and Isaac. Who 
can measure the depths of the sorrow of that 
broken-hearted father as he journeyed those 
three days to the far-off place with his son, 
dedicated to death by his hand and mourned all 
that time as one already dead? And yet this is 
but a faint adumbration of God’s great sacri- 
fice as he gave his only begotten Son, like Isaae 
a willing victim, for our salvation. 

After the patriarchs came four hundred 
years of slavery while a nation was being born, 
in the fulness of time to be led out of the land 
of sin to walk with God through the wilderness 
to the Holy Land led out by his mighty hand 
and stretched-out arm. Under what covenant 


Tur Bioop ATONEMENT 101 


with their deliverer are they now to go forth? 
A. sacrifice fundamental in the history of the 
nation called the Passover, the shedding of the 
blood of an innocent victim, the blood sprinkled 
on the door without while those within partook 
of a feast, a memorial of God’s mercy. And 
when the destroying angel came he visited all 
the houses of Egypt which were unpro- 
tected and passed over those of the protected 
Israelites. 

So that which was the salvation of God’s 
people became the death of their enemies. 

All the precious teachings connected with this 
Passover clearly foreshadow the death of 
Christ, his blood shed to wash away our sins 
and his body broken to be our heavenly food; 
nor can we at all rightly apprehend this crown- 
ing act of Christ’s life apart from a careful 
study and understanding of the sacrifices in the 
Old Testament Scriptures. 

May I suggest that it is well first to study 
these sacrifices prayerfully and independently, 
and later to peruse some of the writings of fel- 
low-Christians such as C. H. M.’s books on the 
Pentateuch, Jukes on the Law of the Offerings, 
Miss Ada R. Habershon’s Types, and make use 
of a good Biblical Cyclopedia such as Fausset’s 
or Eadie’s. In using helps, as indeed in all our 
study of the Word, let us be most careful to 


102 A Screntiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


avoid one of Satan’s commonest devices, that 
of resting satisfied with a correct interpreta- 
tion. Always and everywhere let us seek the 
heart of God manifested in Christ, and not rest 
until his Holy Spirit pours his love into our 
hearts. This will prevent complacency or root 
of bitterness, or the spiritual pride that goes 
up to a brother in a spirit which obviously says 
‘*T am wiser and better than thou.’’ 

As touching those who oppose us, let us re- 
member our duty to speak the truth in love, 
while if any serious trouble seems brewing let 
us pick up our tents and depart and preach the 
Gospel elsewhere, for to this end has he sent 
us forth among the nations. 

Have we discovered how much spiritual meat 
there is in that wonderful book of Leviticus ?— 
the law of the sacrifices, each setting forth 
Christ in some of his many relations to the 
Father and to us. The message of the book is 
the way by which a sinner may approach a holy 
God; the answer being forever with a sacrifice, 
and in no other way. Let us glance over some 
of these precious possessions. 

We begin with his Godward aspect: first the 
burnt offering which symbolizes Christ yielding 
up his life a voluntary offering wholly to do 
the will of the Father; it will be recalled also 
that in the Old Testament the offerer places 


THE Bioop ATONEMENT 1U% 


his hand on the victim’s head as a symbol of 
identification. 

Then the meal offering symbolizing the uni- 
formity and perfection of Christ’s character 
in all its parts, Christ the bread of God, ‘‘ bread 
of the world in mercy broken’’; compare with 
this the defects in man detailed in chapter 
twenty-one. 

The peace offering,—here, thanks be unto 
God our Father, we meet God at the same table 
in the enjoyment of him who brought peace to 
the earth and who made peace between God and 
man, the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9) heralded by 
the angels in glorious psalm, ‘‘ Peace on earth’ 
to men of good will.’’ As he was about to offer 
up the sacrifice for our sins he left us this as 
his heritage: ‘‘ Peace I leave with you, my peace 
I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I 
unto you’’; and, ‘‘These things have I spoken 
unto you, that in me ye might have peace”’ 
(John 14 and 16); and on his return, after his 
resurrection, into the midst of his disciples, on 
both occasions the first spoken word was 
‘“neace.’? So ‘the is our peace’? (Eph. 2). The 
world spends its time devising ways of securing 
peace and crying ‘‘ Peace, peace; when there is 
no peace’’ apart from him who is the Prince of 
peace. Note, and again give thanks, that with 
the peace offering leavened bread is offered, 


104 “A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


making provision for our infirmities! (Lev. 
€:18.) 

In the sin offering on the day of atonement 
(Lev. 16:21) we see Christ in type laden with 
our sins and bearing them away into the wilder- 
ness where they are lost sight of forever. Read 
here the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah for a won- 
derful exposition of this aspect of Christ’s 
work illuminated by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 
5:21), ‘‘For he hath made him to be sin for us, 
who knew no sin; that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in him.”’ 

With the seventh and eighth verses of Isaiah 
53 turn to the inspired commentary of the Holy 
Spirit in Acts 8:26 and to the end of the 
chapter. 

It is here in this fifty-third of Isaiah that the 
great undercurrent of the sacrificial character 
of all the Scriptures breaks through for our 
comfort as a mighty refreshing spring. Let us 
note the significant fact that the word ‘‘atone- 
ment,’’ so common in Leviticus, is not a correct 
translation of the Hebrew word kapporeth, 
which means a covering. God covered up the 
sins committed of old until Christ should come 
and take them away (Cf. Heb. 10: 4-10; Rom. 
83:25): 

One of the saddest results of sin is expressed 
in a frank old English proverb, ‘‘familiarity 


THE Bioop ATONEMENT 105 


breeds contempt,’’ and if not always contempt 
certainly often indifference. Words and warn- 
ings frequently heard are apt to fall upon 
dulled ears and cease to make any impression. 
A genuine, heartfelt interest, however, is a 
radical cure for this evil tendency. I noticed 
during the late great war, when public an- 
nouncements were made profoundly affecting 
the interest of the hearers, that oratory was 
neither expected nor desired, for the recital of 
the facts, even though awkwardly presented, 
was enough to stir the hearts of the people. A 
condemned man is profoundly moved by the 
bare message of a reprieve; any attempted dra- 
matic presentation would arouse resentment. 

Such passages as we have noted become lumi- 
nous and filled with new meaning when inter- 
preted in the light of the cross of Jesus Christ. 

St. Augustine said of the Old and New Testa- 
ments: **The New is in the Old contained. The 
Old is by the New explained.’’ 


Behold ‘‘a Lamb as it had been slain.’’ 

“In whom we have redemption through his 
blood.’’ 

“*Having therefore, brethren, boldness to en- 
ter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.’’ 

As we have seen in the Old Testament, so in 
the New, crimson drops of blood besprinkle 


106 <A Sotentiric MAn AND THE BIBLE 


every page. It is written also at the beginning 
of a new age as in the ancient law ‘‘ without 
shedding of blood is no remission’’! 

Let us follow the narrative thoughtfully 
throughout the Gospel, for it is far different 
from any record man alone would or could have 
made. 

At the threshold of the life of Jesus (Matt. 
2), and later at the moment of his entrance 
upon his ministry, we find Satan, Apollyon the 
Destroyer, lurking to use every means to de- 
stroy him and break down his testimony. The 
hostile power of the enemy grows visibly all 
through the Gospels, until at last by treachery 
and subtlety and with the perversion of justice 
both heathen and Jewish worlds lay violent 
hands upon him and kill him, pouring out his 
blood upon the earth as the indisputable evi- 
dence of his death and the complete satisfaction 
of their hellish desires. 

To all appearances—and so his broken-spir- 
ited disciples concluded—his brief life was 
ended and his work rendered futile. ‘‘We 
trusted that it had been he which should have 
redeemed Israel’? (Luke 24). ‘‘For as yet they 
knew not the scriptures, that he must rise again 
from the dead’’ (John 20:9). But suddenly, 
with reports and ‘‘visions’’ and the announce- 
ment of angels and with personal contacts, 


Tur Bioop ATONEMENT 107, 


coupled with the indisputable evidence afforded 
by the cerements left within the tomb, and by 
his presence in their midst, the forlorn little 
band became aware that a fact now had trans- 
pired mightier even than the creation of this 
vast universe. God had wrought the most won- 
derful of all miracles. Jesus Christ was risen 
conqueror from among the dead, captivity had 
been led captive, and Satan’s power was broken. 

What intensity, what revulsion of feeling 
may we not impute to the words, ‘‘Then were 
the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord!’’ 

Viorory acquired a new meaning and was the 
word which at once reanimated their distraught 
spirits, though as yet all that it might portend 
was not revealed. But it was part of their 
Lord’s purpose; and, as they now recalled, he 
had repeatedly told them of it. Now henceforth 
his way, and not theirs, wherever it might lead. 
Now the life, the death, and the resurrection 
were before them, and these at once portended 
some sort of a restoration, though they were 
not quite clear what; it was God’s way, and 
henceforth theirs. Soon were they to learn the 
full import of this, ‘‘Him, being delivered by 
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of 
God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have 
crucified and slain’’ (Acts 2: 23). 

I have cited all these events because they 


108 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


form an unbreakable chain, and pivotal to the 
whole is the cross and the shedding of the 
Christ’s blood—the blood of the atonement. 

I wonder if, with the Gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke before one, it is not correct to 
make two contradictory declarations; one, that 
the sacrifices of the Old Testament are forgot- 
ten, buried, out of sight; the other that they are 
clearly seen by the eye of faith and evident in 
all parts of these narratives. 

The types and the shadows have disappeared 
because the antitype, the substance, is at hand. 

God’s Passover Lamb is in view now. It is 
fitting, therefore, that we should see no other 
henceforth than Jesus only. How significant 
the words of Luke (chap. 22), ‘‘Now the feast 
of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called 
the Passover. And the chief priests and 
scribes sought how they might kill him’’ (re- 
vert here to Acts 2:23), while the Lord’s sup- 
per, approaching its immediate fulfilment, gave 
the broken loaf as his body to be the food of 
the world and the wine poured forth as the 
blood shed for the washing away of the sins of 
the world. 

The Gospel of John is the gospel of the Son 
of God, the creative Word, of him who was and 
is the ‘‘effulgence of the glory of God and the 
very image of His substance.’’ It is the gospel 


THE Bioop ATONEMENT 109 


of him to behold whom is to behold the invisible 
God (John 1:18), who shared God’s glory be- 
fore the world was (John 17:5), who was loved 
of the Father before the foundation of the 
world (John 17: 24). It is also the gospel of the 
sacrifice, full, perfect and sufficient, for the sins 
of the whole world. Here we find the zenith 
and the nadir meeting in the Truth. So God 
brings together, as often elsewhere, the things 
that to us seem farthest removed from one 
another. 

This Gospel makes its clearest reference to 
the types of the Old Testament when John the 
Baptist cries, ‘‘Behold the Lamb of God.’’ 
From that pregnant moment our Lord passed 
on through the days of his tabernacling in our 
midst with kingly dignity and prophetic vision 
to his chosen end. At the beginning of his mis- 
sion, and at its close, at both times in the 
temple, he speaks of that death by which he was 
to glorify God (John 2:19; 12:24, 32, 33). 
And this Gospel adds at the last this brief refer- 
ence to the climax of love, ‘‘Greater love hath 
no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friends’’ (John 15:13). Surely the 
Lord our God is with us, the shout of a king is 
among us (Num. 23:21). 

The clearest exposition of the relationship 
between the sacrificial types of the Old Testa- 


110 <A Screntiric MAn AND THE BIBLE 


ment and the antitype of the New is found in 
the ninth and tenth chapters of Hebrews, which 
form the strongest link between the economy of 
the law and the economy of grace. 

From henceforth the earthly types hang on 
the walls of the heavenly temple of grace, 
indispensable pictures, teaching fresh and 
precious lessons as they are illuminated from 
the cross erected in the midst of the temple. 

If we seek proof, it is here, nor will any addi- 
tions strengthen the assertions already made. 

If we seek to know more of the diverse appli- 
cations of the voluntary sacrifice of the Son of 
God, then let us with care study the Epistles, 
which are but an expansion of this theme, 
remembering to rely upon our God-given 
Teacher (John 14: 26; 16:18). 

What else does Paul mean when he says, 
‘*‘For I determined not to know any thing 
among you, save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
fied’’; and, ‘‘I am erucified with Christ’’; and, 
**God forbid that I should glory, save in the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the 
world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
world.’’ 

The cross and the blood of the atonement are 
identical in the economy of heavenly justice and 
the manifestations of God’s grace to sinners. 

The agony of the cross, the awful anguish of 


Tur Bioop ATONEMENT jb 


the sin-bearer as the billows of the Father’s 
wrath against sin poured out their floods over 
his devoted head and overwhelmed him, formed 
the great field of the tragedy of the universe. 
The outpouring of the blood from his wounds 
and from his side was the evidence that the 
transaction was completed. The resurrection 
was the Father’s reply, declaring the sufficiency 
of the sacrifice. 

The case has ever since rested with the world. 
God is satisfied. Is man satisfied? God has ac- 
cepted the sacrifice of the cross for sinners; 
and now he says through his servants, ‘‘we 
pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to 
God’’ (2 Cor. 5: 18-20). 

The world at large rejects the cross as an 
offense (Gal. 5:11) and considers it a stum- 
bling-block and foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23). To 
the Christian the cross is God’s propitiatory or 
blood-sprinkled mercy-seat (Rom. 3:25). It 
cleanses him of his sins (1 John 1:7). Itis his 
redemption from the power of the enemy (Acts 
20: 28; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; 1 Pet. 1:19; Rev. 
52:9). 

It is his one source of peace (Col. 1:20). By 
it is released the power of God which raised 
Christ from the dead (Eph. 1:19, 20; compare 
Matt. 28:18: I associate this also with Psa. 
8:2!). 


112 A Screntiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


It is our only source of sanctification, the 
greatest work of the Spirit of God. It is the 
basis of all Christian fellowship (1 Cor. 10:16). 

All these are the heavenly gifts of our Kins- 
man Redeemer (Heb. 2: 10-15). 

And what return does our Saviour ask for his 
great love wherewith he loved us? That we 
come to the mercy-seat with broken hearts; 
confessing sin, weakness, and need, and with 
faith in his power to hear us; that we become 
his obedient servants (1 Sam. 15:22; John 
14: 215 15:10: 4) John’ 3:.24% 53.2) 3)% loving 
one another (John 13:34, 35; 1 John 3:23); 
and bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit (John 
15:8; Gal. 5: 22-24). 

Henceforth Christ Jesus is the Apostle and 
Great High Priest of our profession. We are 
a royal priesthood appointed to offer up spir- 
itual sacrifices. ‘‘By him therefore let us offer 
the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that 
is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his 
name,”’ 

Now at last, in the end of the ages, are merey 
and truth et together; righteousness and 
peace have kissed each other. Truth shall 
spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall 
look down from heaven. . . . Righteousness 
shall go before him; and shall set us in the way 
of his steps’’ (Psa. 85). 


Tur Bitoop ATONEMENT 113 


‘‘Now the God of peace, that brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shep- 
herd of the sheep, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every 
good work to do his will, working in you that 
which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus 
Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. 
Amen.”’ 

Not all the blood of beasts 
On Jewish altars slain 

Can give the guilty conscience peace 
Or take away its stain. 

But Christ the Lamb of God 
Takes all our sins away 


A sacrifice of nobler name 
And better far than they. 


Thanks be unto God for his great mercy. 

































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VI 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY 


“‘For uf the dead rise not, then is not Christ 
raised: and 1f Christ be not rased, your faith 
is vain; ye are yet in your sins’’ (1 Cor. 15). 

“If we have been planted together in the like- 
ness of lus death, we shall be also in the likeness 
of his resurrection.’’ 


4 HE resurrection is the triumph over all 
the results of sin, and over him who had 
the power of it’’ (A. C. Hoge). 

No revelation in the Word of God is so diffi- 
cult for the natural man, untaught by the Spirit 
of God, as the resurrection of these fleshly 
bodies in which we are tabernacling during this 
earthly pilgrimage. Many years ago, when in 
London, I was invited to meet the minister of 
the City Temple who was attracting much at- 
tention by preaching startling novelties week 
by week to down-town crowds. Among other 
things he did not believe in the resurrection of 
our bodies. When my hostess brought up the 
question, he offered the ancient objection of a 
man who, having lost a leg or an arm, say in 


South Africa, later died and was buried in Eng- 
117 


118 <A Sorentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


land. How, he queried, could the parts of a 
body so separated and disintegrated be reas- 
sembled at the resurrection? 

The resurrection was also the stumbling-block 
to the learned Athenians when Paul reasoned 
about the final judgment of God ‘‘whereof he 
hath given assurance unto all men, in that he 
hath raised him [Christ] from the dead.’’ 
When they heard this some mocked and others 
said, ‘* We will hear thee again of this matter.’’ 
The Sadducees, who also rejected the resurrec- 
tion, offered their quibbling objection, which 
was the case of a woman married seven times. 
‘*Whose wife would she be at the resurrec- 
tion?’’? Paul before Agrippa, Bernice, and Fes- 
tus, asked, ‘‘ Why should it be thought a thing 
incredible with you, that God should raise the 
dead?’’ as Gabriel in like tenor declared to 
Mary, inquiring (not objecting) about Christ’s 
miraculous birth, ‘‘For with God nothing shall 
be impossible’? (Luke 1:37). Christ’s diag- 
nosis, which applies to all objectors alike, was, 
‘*Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the 
power of God.’’ To know God’s Word is fully 
to be aware of the power of the Creator. Then 
all difficulties and doubts are removed. Then 
our faith rests on our Lord ‘‘who shall change 
the body of our humiliation, that it may be fash- 
ioned like unto his glorious body’’ (Phil. 3: 21). 


Tuer RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 119 


IT am thankful that when Jesus was asked by 
the Sadducees for Old Testament proof of the 
resurrection, he did not select a proof text, but 
rested the matter on the whole, easily discerned, 
underlying principle involved in God’s declara- 
tion to Moses, ‘‘IJ am the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’’ He 
added to this his own exegesis, ‘‘God is not the 
God of the dead, but of the living’’! Thus he 
showed that the whole implied teaching of the 
ancient Scriptures is that of the resurrection 
of the dead, and that (by the Spirit-taught man) 
other like simple natural inferences from the 
Scriptures are warrantable. In like manner, 
the writer of Hebrews takes the very omissions 
of the Scripture and the meanings of names to 
be prophetic touching the Melchizedek priest- 
hood of Christ. Christ, referring to his cruci- 
fixion, death for sinners, resurrection, and as- 
cension, said to the disciples going to Emmaus, 
‘*Q fools, and slow of heart to believe all that 
the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to 
have suffered these things, and to enter into his 
glory?’’ (Luke 24: 25, 26.) 

Up in the high mountains lie the eternal 
snows and the glaciers sending forth their little 
streams, which unite in the rich lower valleys 
and continue their course, making the fields 
fruitful and decking them with beauty. So it 


120 <A Sotentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


is with resurrection truth, consciously realized 
in the Old Testament, but only here and there 
coming to open dogmatic expression. It later 
appears everywhere in the New Testament as 
the result of the work of him ‘‘who hath abol- 
ished death, and hath brought life and immor- 
tality to light through the gospel.’’ 

That we may be duly impressed by the teach- 
ing of the Bible, let us first look at the Gospels, 
noting at the same time the differences between 
the first three and John’s account. Then let us 
read the Acts and 1 Corinthians 15. Finally, 
let us gather data here and there in the Epistles. 

It is imperative to begin with prayer for the 
Holy Spirit’s guidance and to conclude our 
reading with ‘‘the fruit of our lips giving 
thanks to his name.’’ The several important 
questions for which we seek answers are these: 


Did Christ really die upon the cross? Was 
he buried? Did he rise from the tomb in his 
earthly body? 


What statements or events led up to his eruci- 
fixion? When did he appear to anticipate his 
death? Did the disciples expect it at any time 
in the sense that he did? 


What does the Bible say about the resurrec- 
tion of the disciples and of men at large? Will 


THE RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 121 


spirits rejoin their earthly bodies as was mani- 
festly the case with Christ? 


Are any reasons given for the physical resur- 
rection of the body? 


What does such a belief mean to me in my 
daily life? 


Let us follow the above outline in a general 
way. 

In Matthew 12: 40 there is an early intimation 
of his resurrection when our Lord explains the 
significance of Jonah’s three days’ incarcera- 
tion. He thus fully authenticated that touching 
narrative (see especially Jonah, chapter 2). 
Again in Matthew 10:8 and 11:5 and in John 5 
and 6 the raising of the dead is referred to, 
demonstrating thus early, that our Lord as- 
serted his own complete control over the realm 
of death. The Gospel of Matthew has two 
hinges on which the book swings near its center. 
The first is the change in Christ’s attitude and 
teaching touching the Kingdom (Matt. 18), 
where, with the rejection of the King plainly in 
view and the visible Kingdom deferred (Matt. 
10 to 12), he teaches in parables the mystery 
form of the Kingdom as it exists today. Then 
follows (Matt. 16) the great doctrinal hinge 


122 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


when the disciples clearly recognize his deity 
and declare, ‘‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
the living God.’’ The words which mark the 
transition are striking: ‘‘F'rom that time forth 
began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how 
that he must . . . be killed, and be raised 
again the third day.’’ Again (Matt. 17:23), 
and yet again (Matt. 20:19), he repeated this, 
but the popular expectation of an earthly Messi- 
anic Kingdom had too strong a hold on the 
minds of his hearers to permit them to grasp 
the purport of his words. There was no knowl- 
edge of any death and resurrection until both 
great events came to pass. Then first their 
reluctant and finally their joyous assent to 
what their Lord had told them was secured. 
He did not mention his resurrection, as one 
might have expected, at the last supper just 
before his crucifixion, because the supper is a 
memorial feast of a sacrifice accomplished and 
looks rather beyond all intervening events to 
his coming again. 

In the Gospel of Mark the break occurs at 
the eighth chapter, when Christ’s public mani- 
festation is ended and he proceeds to train his 
disciples to take his place after the world’s ap- 
parent defeat of his mission. Here we note 
several instructions before the events which are 
immediately associated with his crucifixion. 


Tur RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 123 


They are emphatic repetitions of his first state- 
ment (Mark 9:31; 10:33), followed finally by 
the act of the King in summoning before him 
for judgment (Mark 12) representatives of 
each group of his opponents, the ritualistic 
Pharisees, the worldly Herodians, the Saddu- 
cees, and the Scribes. 

Luke proclaims Christ’s power over death in 
his message to John the Baptist. Jesus sends 
the emissaries back to John to tell him, as a 
sign of the Messianic Kingdom, that the ‘‘dead 
are raised.’’ Again, as Jesus ‘‘stedfastly set 
his face to go to Jerusalem,’’ Luke repeats the 
same declaration recorded by Matthew and 
Mark. And yet once more, upon nearing Jeri- 
cho, he gives us the same prophetic words. 
Thus our Lord connected these two leading 
events, his death and his resurrection, for all 
ages. I doubt if the records of these latter days 
preserve for us all the occasions on which he 
linked together these two vitally important 
events, but they are clearly dominant in the 
statements preserved. We cannot lose sight of 
the fact that the whole narrative is drawing 
irresistibly toward its tremendous, dramatic 
close. 

In John’s Gospel, early in his ministry (John 
2), we find that remarkable, but at the same 
time cryptic, prophetic utterance, ‘‘Destroy 


124 <A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
up,’’ signifying the temple of his body. Jesus 
states in the great Divinity chapter (John 5) 
that the dead shall hear his voice and live, and 
that ‘‘all that are in the graves shall hear his 
voice,’’ and that there is to be a resurrection of 
life and a resurrection of condemnation (note 
the separation of the two). Again in John 6, 
after feeding the multitude miraculously with 
the Heaven-given Passover bread, he proceeds 
to interpret this feast to them in the strongest 
possible language, as revealing the intimacy of 
union and absolute oneness with himself of all 
who would come to God through him. This in- 
terpretation reveals that this union necessitates 
resurrection. ‘‘That . . . I should lose 
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last 
day’’ and ‘That every one which seeth the Son, 
and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: 
and I will raise him up at the last day,’’ and 
**Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, 
hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the 
last day.’’? Of himself, he says, ‘‘I lay down 
my life, that I might take it again,’’ and ‘‘I 
have power to lay it down, and I have power 
to take it again’’ (John 10). 

All arguments for the resurrection of these 
mortal bodies are also sustained by Christ’s 
control of disease and of the field of nature and 


Tue RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 125 


especially of the realm of death, asserted in the 
preceding quotations and gloriously attested in 
the raising of Jairus’ daughter, of the widow 
of Nain’s son, and above all of Lazarus, already 
dead four days. Martha, with the faith doubt- 
less of many truly religious Jews, declares con- 
cerning the dead Lazarus, ‘‘T know that he shall 
rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’’ 
Her declaration is followed at once by Jesus’ 
statement, ‘‘I am the resurrection, and the 
life.’ He illuminates with these words his 
teachings in the fifth and sixth chapters of 
John’s Gospel. It would greatly aid in 
strengthening these impressions if one were to 
review here all the significant ‘‘I am’s’’ in this 
Gospel. 

Let us also dwell upon our Lord’s statement 
to those gathered about the grave of Lazarus, 
*‘Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest 
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”’ 
Whatever by grace we may here and now ap- 
prehend in these words, we shall without doubt 
continue through the ages of eternity to ap- 
preciate more and more that God’s glory is 
peculiarly revealed in resurrection power. 

We have thus seen that the doctrine of the 
resurrection runs as a mighty undercurrent 
through the Old Testament Scriptures; that 
Jesus treated death as completely and naturally 


126 A Sorntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


under his dominion as every part of the realm 
of nature; that he spoke frequently and with 
the utmost plainness of his coming death and 
resurrection; and that his reiterated statements 
made no impression upon his disciples. 

Thus without fellowship or the sympathy of 
any but Mary of Bethany who anointed him for 
his burial, our Lord went to his crucifixion. The 
blow fell, the Shepherd was smitten and the 
sheep were scattered as prophesied. 

We now approach the crucial event in the 
history of the ages, the time when Jesus looked 
and there was none to help and he wondered 
that there was none to uphold, wherefore his 
own arm brought salvation (Isa. 63), and so he 
entered the realms of death forsaken of his fa- 
miliar friends and forsaken of God because he 
was bearing the sins of the world. What incon- 
ceivable agony was his, but what terror laid 
hold of Satan and the children of the pit as the 
Righteousness of God was manifested there 
where the Word had never even been spoken 
and where holiness was abhorred! As true 
righteousness is ever by its very nature aggres- 
sive where sin exists, so when he rose he led 
captivity captive and brought gifts unto men, 
triumphant over Satan, sin, and death! And 
who was this mighty conqueror but that same 
Jesus who but recently was mockingly invested 


Tur RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 127 


by his enemies with a crown of thorns, clothed 
by Herod with a purpureal robe, a reed in his 
regal right hand in contempt of his kingly 
claims, blindfolded, smitten, and spit upon, 
while on the cross they proclaimed to the world 
the futility of his claim to kingship! Thus, 
single-handed, in the midst of the vast hordes 
of evil, he took those mocking symbols, con- 
verted them into reality, and made good his 
claims to be the Son of God, Son of man and 
man’s Redeemer, King of kings, and Lord of 
lords. The mighty Conqueror rose again hold- 
ing in his hands the keys of hell and of death, 
symbols of their broken power. 

A woman bore him; blessed be the name of 
Mary among women. 

A woman sat at his feet, learned of him, knew 
his resurrection power, and anointed him for 
his burial; blessed be the name of Mary of 
Bethany. 

A. woman mourning his death came to do 
honor to his body and was the first to discover 
the absence of his body and to learn of his 
resurrection and to carry the news to the world; 
blessed be the memory of Mary Magdalene. 

Do the Gospels anywhere record greater 
honors than these? 

Thus in the culmination of the ages was the 
King’s highway opened up by a man in his 


128 A Scientiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


corporeal though transformed body going be- 
fore us to the realms of glory and to the very 
throne of God. He first passed over this great 
royal road and left his footprints to guide all 
who would follow him in the Way. 

Clear evidences of the resurrection are: 


The fact that it was utterly unexpected by 
the disciples and that their astonishment was 
great (Luke 24: 4). 

It is constantly certified by the disciples who 
saw and companied with our Lord after his 
resurrection (Acts). 

By the evidences of his power over death 
(during his earthly life). 

By the transformation wrought in his dis- 
ciples once assured of it and receiving the gift 
of the Holy Spirit. 

By his eating and drinking with them after 
rising from the dead (Luke 24: 41; John 21:13; 
Acts 10:41). 

By all the blessed results flowing out over the 
world through the following centuries. 


As we turn from the last chapters of the 
Gospels to Acts and the Epistles, we become 
conscious of a new and mighty unknown force 
released and at work in the world. So evident 
is this that even the unbelieving world has testi- 


Tur RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 129 


fied to its presence ever since Christ’s depar- 
ture, while at the same time there has been one 
continuous futile series of efforts of that unbe- 
lieving world to discover a substitute for it. 

Permit a brief digression upon the words 
‘‘nower’”’ and ‘‘dynamic’”’ so often in men’s 
mouths. The history of real continuous power 
among men began with the cross of Christ and 
his resurrection. The world worships power 
and rejoices over every fresh material manifes- 
tation of it. 

But this mere material power, always sooner 
or later exploited by Satan, is the ruin of those 
who use it forgetting the Spirit of God. <A bril- 
liant example of this was seen in the recent 
war, the most destructive in the world’s his- 
tory. The history of unregenerate men has 
ever been that of a feverish search for a method 
of regenerating the world without God. Cen- 
turies before we had dreamed of these recently 
released powers on which we declare our civili- 
zation depends, Christ appeared proclaiming 
the true power of God, manifested in a surcease 
of sorrow and care and all the ills that sin has 
brought into the world. 

At the beginning of his ministry, John an- 
nounces, ‘‘as many as received him, to them 
gave he power to become the sons of God, even 
to them that believe on his name.’’ But won- 


130 (A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


derful as were his life and teachings, the power 
was not vested in them, for in the midst of them 
did he not declare ‘‘I have a baptism to be 
baptized with; and how am [I straitened till it 
be accomplished’’? (Luke 12:50.) ‘‘Straitened’’ 
calls to my mind a mummy wrapped in innu- 
merable bandages and enclosed in its carton. 
Then came the death on the cross; then having 
overcome death by resurrection and, leaving 
the chrysalis of the cerements behind, ‘‘ Jesus 
came and spake unto them, saying, All power 
is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go 
ye therefore, and teach all nations 

and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world’’ (Matt. 28). So while blind men 
continued groping for power, it has long since 
been shed abroad for all who would use it, even 
this ‘‘mighty power, which he wrought in 
Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and 
set him at his own right hand in the heavenly 
places. ”’ 

The single grain of corn fell into the ground, 
died, and sprang up to produce other fruitful 
corn and to go on increasing until the whole 
earth shall in the end be filled with its fruitful- 
ness. So, possessors of this mighty power and 
rejoicing with an exceeding great joy, his dis- 
ciples have gone forth to overthrow Satan’s 
power in the world ever since that Lord’s Day 


THE RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 131 


so many centuries ago when in its supreme ef- 
fort the power of the enemy was destroyed and 
the Kingdom of God was set up with power. 
The first outflowings and distributions of this 
irresistible power are recorded in the Acts and 
the Kpistles, together with the rules for the 
use and control of the power house as contained 
in the Biblical record. The promise is that it 
is destined utterly to subvert the kingdom of 
evil. Let all who use it ever bear in mind that 
its ultimate source is God’s great loving heart. 
The power of his resurrection is evident every- 
where in the Acts from Peter’s first sermon at 
Pentecost (where the resurrection is mentioned 
four times) all the way through to Paul’s so- 
journ in Rome. 

In the Epistle to the Romans Paul speaks of 
God’s Son, Jesus Christ, born of Mary, ‘‘de- 
clared to be the Son of God with power, accord- 
ing to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection 
from the dead’’ which ‘‘is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that believeth.’ 

As with so many of the great doctrines of 
our faith, one fuller statement is found in 1 
Corinthians, fifteenth chapter, wherein is shown 
the futility of all our faith in Christ apart from 
his bodily resurrection, as well as the fact that 
his rising from the dead was a firstfruits and 
the guarantee of our resurrection. The fashion 


132 <A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


of the new body is that ‘‘it is raised in incor- 
ruption . . . itis raised a spiritual body”’ 
(see also Phil. 3: 20). 

With such a superabundance of evidence be- 
fore us, why should we question or doubt? 
‘‘Fear not, only believe.’? We have seen that 
both Scriptures are the Word of God, speaking 
by mediators and coming himself to speak to us 
upon earth; that they both declare the resur- 
rection of these mortal bodies from the dead, 
‘‘Christ the firstfruits; then they that are 
Christ’s at his ecoming.’’ If these things are 
thus beyond peradventure, J am not anxious to 
inquire why or how, but gladly leave such ques- 
tions to the realm of faith. I am not seeking 
to be wise beyond what is written when I antici- 
pate that Christ and all his risen followers will 
ever constitute a new order of beings in the 
heavenly realms; that we shall ever be known 
and identified to angels and archangels as those 
who have been redeemed from the power of sin. 
That in this new creation by resurrection power 
God’s honor has been fully vindicated and his 
great love manifested. That in us that which 
is material has been glorified and shown worthy 
of him. Are not all these things ‘‘To the intent 
that now unto the principalities and powers in 
heavenly places might be known by the church 
the manifold wisdom of God, according to the 


THE RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 133 


eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ 
Jesus our Lord’’? (Eph. 3.) Do not these 
thoughts at least suggest answers to the why? 
And is not the how abundantly answered by 
nature every springtide when the seeds dropped 
into the earth and buried under the snows and 
ice of winter are quickened into new life and 
rise transformed and glorified from earth’s 
bosom? Is the resurrection a greater miracle 
than this order of nature, or has familiarity 
dulled our vision? 

We must bring this fruitful theme to a close 
with this consideration. All the teaching about 
the resurrection, however correct, is as nothing 
unless it means something to me in my daily 
life, for all the doctrines of the Bible and 
its teachings are practical in their ultimate 
analysis. 

What then does the resurrection mean to me? 


A clear hope vested in my risen Saviour 
which I could not have, had Christ never risen 
from the dead. 


My justification before the bar of eternal jus- 
tice so that I shall not come into judgment, 
through Christ’s victory over death. 


My inclusion from henceforth among the wit- 
nesses of his resurrection. 


184 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


My burial with Christ, my resurrection with 
him, and my life’s interests henceforth in seek- 
ing those things that are above where Christ is 
seated at the right hand of God. 


My Father’s gift of his Holy Spirit to guide 
me on my earthly pilgrimage and the fulfilment 
of John 7: 38, 39. 


Christ’s power manifested in this earthly life 
(compare Acts 4:33 and Phil. 3:11). 


The promise, ‘‘For if we have been planted 
together in the likeness of his death, we shall 
be also in the likeness of his resurrection”’ 
(Rom, 6:5). 


My marriage to the risen Christ, thus enabled 
to bring forth fruit unto God (Rom. 7:4). 


Let us sanctify our Lord’s Day, week by 
week, jealously guarding its privileges and 
making each one a memorial feast of his victory 
over death as attested by his resurrection. 


VII 
THE LORD’S RETURN 








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Vil 
THE LORD’S RETURN 


SAW somewhere recently an admirable 
statement which I summarize. 

Far back at the opening of our era, two great 
social organizations sprang into being: one was 
the Roman Empire and the other was Chris- 
tianity. The Empire was rooted in the Greek 
and Persian Empires preceding it, by force of 
arms, won favor by its earthly splendor, and 
was not without its gods and goddesses and a 
justly celebrated code of laws. It had also its 
earthly head, the emperor who was deified and 
actually worshiped. Its legal enactments were 
the elaboration of the three fundamental sound 
maxims basic in our own laws today, alteruwm 
mon ledere, suum cuique tribuere, honeste 
vivere (Do thy fellow no harm, give every man 
his due, live honestly). The kingdom, perpetu- 
ated by force and based upon positive law, took 
no cognizance of any inward spiritual man, but 
demanded outward conformity only. 

The advent of the second Kingdom, on the 
contrary, was without violence and observa- 
tion; in place of the clash of arms and the 


shouts of the spoilsmen over their prey, its 
137 


188 A Sorentiric Man AND THE BIBLE 


gentle King came fulfilling a prophecy, seven 
hundred and fifty years old, declaring his 
method and his final triumph. ‘‘He shall not 
ery, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard 
in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, 
and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he 
shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”’ 

The Heaven-sent ruler of this second King- 
dom, by the deliberate acts of the civil and re- 
ligious rulers, was quickly slain and left his 
Kingdom, as the world thought, broken beyond 
repair, thus inaugurating the age-long warfare 
between them and demonstrating their utter in- 
compatibility one with another. ‘These two 
kingdoms had nothing whatever in common but 
the claim of each to universality. Both re- 
mained to be tested, the one finally chosen and 
the other rejected. 

The Roman Kingdom quickly exhausted its 
possibilities and went to seed, having nothing 
further to offer; Christ’s Kingdom, without a 
visible throne, continues growing through the 
ages and manifesting its life in the midst of all 
other earthly kingdoms, regenerating lost hu- 
manity wherever received,—the one Kingdom 
of which all the subjects are loyal. 

The kingdom of the world appeals to the head 
alone, the heavenly, makes its appeal primarily 
to the heart. The first ever ignoring the sec- 


Tur Lorp’s Return 139 


ond is busy continually refashioning and read- 
justing its laws and, ever just on the eve of 
perfecting itself and humanity, never draws 
any nearer to the goal. The heavenly Kingdom 
declares that the cause of earth’s failure lies 
not in the laws, but in the corrupt human nature 
which makes the laws and then adjudicates 
them ;—as one has said long ago, ‘‘What the 
Jaw could not do, in that it was weak through 
the flesh.’? The kings of the first were innu- 
merable by reason of their mortal infirmity; 
the second yields its allegiance to its unseen 
King, the Lord of Glory who has promised to 
return to resume his throne upon earth and to 
rule the world, and upon this grand finale de- 
pends the promised victory of the second King- 
dom, apart from which there remains no hope 
but sin and death, hatred, wars and destruction 
and utter misery to the end. 

The Christian Bible is the code of laws of the 
second or spiritual Kingdom; let us see, there- 
fore, what it has to say about the return of this 
King slain so long ago. 

Let me note as I begin that this truth re- 
garding the return of our Lord to reign in per- 
son here upon earth is variously held by our 
fellow Christians with major and minor differ- 
ences. As a rule, in our common orthodox 
churches it is not often referred to, or if at all 


140 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


with considerable uncertainty and diffidence, in 
spite of the fact that the most ancient creed of 
the church clearly proclaims that ‘‘He shall 
come again with glory to judge both the quick 
and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no 
end.’’ While the Episcopal Church at the very 
beginning of the year has an advent Sunday 
consecrated by a glorious collect and Sunday 
by Sunday reminds her worshipers in their fel- 
lowship and service that as often as they par- 
take of the communion of the body and blood of 
Christ they ‘‘do shew the Lord’s death till he 
come’’ (1 Cor. 11: 26), the note of triumphant 
expectation is not often heard outside of these 
formal statements, nor does this particular doe- 
trine seem to react seriously upon any consid- 
erable number of her members as a controlling 
influence in their daily lives. 

Part of the diversity in Christendom relates, 
however, not so much to the fact of Christ’s 
coming as to the time; unfortunately these op- 
posing views have had to be labeled with special 
names which react as usual as fixatives and a 
hindrance to the entrance of the truth wherever 
it may lie. There are, for example, those who 
believe that there will be a thousand years of 
peace upon earth (the millennium, Rev. 20: 2-7), 
but do not expect Christ to return to reign until 
the thousand years have passed,—these are 


Tuer Lorp’s Return 141 


called postmillenarians; others, often called ad- 
ventists or premillenarians, or in the older 
writings chiliasts (Greek chilia, a thousand), 
look daily for our Lord’s return to inaugurate 
his blessed reign upon earth and purge the 
world at once of all iniquity; again others even 
continue to venture to fix a date for his coming, 
as on numerous occasions in the past. 

It is my own belief that the New Testament 
teaches us clearly that he has been likely to 
return at any moment ever since his departure 
and that it is the privilege of the Church, the 
expectant bride, to stand upon the watch-tower 
scanning the horizon for signs of his near ap- 
proach while ever holding herself in readiness 
to welcome him. It is my privilege here to 
submit my reasons to those who will consider 
them. 

My earnest request, surely not a troublesome 
one in view of the importance of the matter, is 
that anyone who has not reached an unalterable 
conviction on this head will first con the two 
sets of references in the Old Testament to the 
coming of the Deliverer, one set the most nu- 
merous setting forth his advent with power and 
great glory to establish his Kingdom on earth, 
the other not at a first inspection so obvious 
but still equally definite, proclaiming a Messiah 
destined to be persecuted, and to suffer death 


142 <A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


asasin-bearer. I indicate here several of these 
Old Testament passages referring to the Mes- 
siah’s humiliation: They are found in all the 
sacrifices, in the Passover lamb and in the book 
of Leviticus; abundantly in Joseph’s prophetic 
life, a beautiful type of our Lord, the deliverer 
of his people; they are seen in the twenty-sec- 
ond Psalm; indeed, throughout the entire book 
of Psalms he is ever in mind; most clearly in 
the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah; and in the 
prophecies of Zechariah. Next take the New 
Testament, blue pencil in hand, and read it 
through, marking a capital ‘‘A’’ (Advent) in 
the margin wherever you find Christ’s return 
to earth is clearly referred to. You will also 
discover more places to mark on a later reading 
which you pass over in the first, if you come to 
expect his near return. In this way, the Bible 
speaks most effectively for itself, and I do not 
ask more than this of anyone. 

An important caution: Study with prayer 
and resolve by the grace given you and by vir- 
tue of your claim to saintship in Christ never 
to let any convictions you may reach in this or 
any kindred matter gender spiritual pride, a 
sense of manifest superiority over those fellow 
Christians who do not hold with you,—a pride, 
alas, too common and one of Satan’s snares for 
the unwary. Another caution: Do not rate this 


Tur Lorp’s Rerurn 143 


to be the sole subject of vital importance before 
the Christian world today. The matter ever of 
highest import in an unconverted world is the 
death of the Son of God on the cross for our 
sins, the just for the unjust, that we may escape 
from the hands of the destroyer and receive life 
and immortality, and our obligation to bring 
this home to the hearts of all men. Closely and 
inseparably connected with this foundation 
truth follow Christ’s bodily resurrection, his 
ascension to the Father’s throne, and then his 
return again to reign upon earth,—an unbroken 
chain of great doctrines; yet the first, if we 
may differentiate, ever of primary importance. 
I write obviously to those who accept the Bible 
as God’s authoritative Word, for apart from 
the Bible where are we to look for any knowl- 
edge of things spiritual and especially of those 
yet to come? There is no argument either for 
or against Christ’s coming again apart from 
the Bible. 

Our plan of examination will then be (1) 
after a passing reference to the Old Testament, 
(2) to consider the Gospels, the Acts, the Epis- 
tles—with 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, as the, 
central point, and Revelation, and (3) finally to 
state what such a doctrine must mean to me in 
my daily life. 

The Old Testament begins with the prophecy 


144. A Scorentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


to Eve in the garden, proclaiming everywhere 
the great and final warfare between good and 
evil with the assurance of the ultimate complete 
triumph of righteousness in him of whom it is 
declared, ‘‘It [the seed of the woman] shall 
bruise thy [the serpent’s] head, and thou shalt 
bruise his heel.’’ It reveals God himself at war 
with sin and Satan its author in the shout, 
‘‘The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his 
name’’! It seems clear to me that the Old 
Testament prophecies were understood in a 
general way by the godly Jew as we understand 
them today, only they left him puzzled as to the 
apparent dual personality of his Messiah. One 
way he adopted to solve his difficulty was to 
declare that there must be two Messiahs, a 
suffering Messiah of whom Joseph in Egypt is 
a clear type, called Messiah Ben (son of) Jos- 
eph, and a Messiah Ben Solomon coming to oc- 
cupy his glorious throne like Solomon. How 
easy the solution now that we know of Christ’s 
two advents, one fulfilling the Scriptures to suf- 
fer and the other completing them to reign. It 
is ever a fruitful study to distinguish more and 
more clearly these contrasting types through- 
out the Jewish Scriptures. 

With the two comings of one and the same 
person in mind, let us turn to one of the Gos- 
pels, Luke for example. The presentation to 


THE Lorp’s Return 145 


earth of a King ready to rule if welcomed was 
a bona fide offer, so we must not expect, as in- 
deed we do not find, any declarations as to a 
second coming designed to influence conduct 
until his rejection is assured. On the other 
hand, with his rejection obviously at hand, as 
the end drew near, he then began with the ut- 
most plainness to predict his coming death and 
resurrection and in those emphatic final dis- 
courses to dwell upon the end of the present 
age and his coming again: ‘‘ And then shall they 
see the Son of man coming in a cloud with 
power and great glory’’ (Matt. 24, Mark 13, 
and Luke 21). Luke seems perhaps fuller of 
this thought than Matthew and Mark, so I cite 
him. First of all the promise to Mary (1:32), 
‘‘The Lord God shall give unto him the throne 
of his father David,’’ must be understood in 
the New as in the Old Testament to be the 
promise of an earthly kingdom only possible 
now of fulfillment by his return to reign on 
earth. John the Baptist preached first, and 
then Christ preached, a Kingdom of God come 
unto men, but sin and Satan hindered it for a 
time. Does not then the very dignity of Christ’s 
person and do not these unmistakable procla- 
mations demand his return once more in the 
fullness of time to take unto himself the earthly 
Kingdom his Father gave him, a Kingdom now 


146 A ScientTiIFIC MAN AND THE BIBLE 


more than ever assured by his death, his glori- 
ous resurrection, his triumphal ascension, and 
his session at the right hand of the Majesty on 
high? 

Following the clear recognition of his deity 
by the disciples (Matt. 16, Mark 8, Luke 9), 
Jesus at once began a new teaching and train- 
ing of his followers, and in each of these Gos- 
pels warns them of the folly of throwing away 
their lives for the things of this world, and 
points to the final award, when the Son of man 
‘‘shall come in his own glory, and in his 
Father’s, and of the holy angels.’’ In Luke 
(12: 16-48) due preparedness for his unexpected 
coming is pictured in parables, in strong con- 
trast to the rich fool who gave his whole life to 
the acquisition of riches, and with warnings to 
the servants who forgot about his return. 

I recall an interesting incident connected 
with this passage. It took place at Northfield 
about in the late nineties when Dwight L. and 
Mrs. Moody were wont to invite ministers and a 
few other guests to their home after the evening 
service in the Auditorium. Conversation then 
ranged over a diversity of topics; on the par- 
ticular occasion Moody addressed this question 
to each one present, ‘‘Do you think the Lord is 
likely to come back soon?’’ One after another 
declared he did not think he would. Then 


THe Lorp’s Return 147 


Moody read from Luke 12:40, ‘‘Be ye there- 
fore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at 
an hour when ye think not.’’ 

Here, also, showing how frequently our Lord 
must have dealt with this matter, read the 
parables of the virgins waiting for the bride- 
groom, and of the talents entrusted to his 
servants until their Lord’s return, and include 
Matthew 24 and Mark 14:1-12. Could last 
teachings possibly be plainer or more emphatic 
than these? It is good to memorize Mark 
13: 34-37. Suppose we unite one and all in an 
informal band called the Gregoreite (Greek for 
‘‘watch’’) Society, taking for our motto these 
last four verses of Mark 13, where the word 
appears three times; keep awake and watch— 
watch—watch! 

Again dare we ask for a clearer testimony 
than the comfort words, so often repeated, of 
John 14? ‘‘Let not your heart be troubled: ye 
believe in God, believe also in me.’’ And yet its 
one great purpose frequently overlooked is, ‘*‘T 
go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and 
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and 
receive you unto myself.’’ So likewise at the 
end of the Gospel, in the appendix as it were, 
we hear our Lord’s answer to Peter’s inquiry 
about John’s death, ‘‘If I will that he tarry till 
T come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.”’ 


148 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


In Acts, chapter one, we see the disciples 
straining their gaze heavenward following their 
vanishing Lord as he is caught up into the 
clouds. There they might easily have been led 
to erect a tabernacle on the very spot and to 
spend their lives in contemplative reveries on 
the beatific vision of his return, but ‘‘ Two men 
stood by them in white apparel; which also said, 
Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up 
from you into heaven, shall so come wm lke 
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven,’’ 
and in effect implied ‘‘take this rapture of your 
Lord as a source of power and go out into the 
wide world and work for him until he returns.’’ 
Acts is the book of the busy-ness of the disciples 
on earth as they at once proceeded to proclaim 
the message of the coming of the Prince of 
Peace, and God’s mercy to repentant sinners 
through Christ crucified and risen. 

The one epistle in the New Testament, by 
pre-eminence meriting the title of ‘‘The Book 
of the Second Coming,’’ is that one which was 
in all probability the very first to be written, 
namely, First Thessalonians. Passing over 
the numerous (one might almost say innumer- 
able) passages elsewhere in the New Testa- 
ment, let me cite some from this ever fresh and 
early writing as convincing and conclusive as 


Tuer Lorp’s Return 149 


to the extreme importance of the doctrine at a 
time when the Bible was not as yet completed, 
and when those various writings which now 
form the Canon of the New Testament Scrip- 
tures were being penned under the guidance of 
God’s Holy Spirit. Note here the emphatic 
statement of chapter four, verse fifteen, ‘‘ For 
this we say unto you by the word of the Lord.’’ 

In chapter one, the Thessalonians have 
‘‘turned to God from idols to serve the living 
and true God; And to wait for his Son from 
heaven.’’ 

In chapter two, at the end, the Thessalonian 
believers are Paul’s hope and joy and crown 
of rejoicing ‘‘in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
Christ at his coming.’’ 

Chapter three ends with ‘‘To the end that he 
may stablish your hearts unblameable in holi- 
ness before God, even our Father, at the com- 
ing of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his 
saints.’ 

Chapter four contains the fullest of all the 
statements in the Bible and is the very heart of 
this great doctrine; here Paul declares that 
‘‘We which are alive and remain unto the com- 
ing of the Lord shall not precede them which 
are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend 
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the 
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the 


150 ‘A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which 
are alive and remain shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord 
in the air: and so shall we ever be with the 
Lord.’’ Study this passage carefully and 
rather radiate from it into other parts of the 
New Testament. 

This coming again is also an occasion for 
' judging the saints for their rewards for service 
and concerning their opportunities utilized in 
their earthly pilgrimage (see 1 Cor. 3:11-15). 
We work not for the rewards themselves but 
because only in this way can we best serve him 
who has called us to share his Kingdom and 
glory. Let it be noted that the saints never 
come into judgment as to their salvation, for 
that depends wholly upon Christ’s work and 
was settled on Calvary, thus giving them entire 
assurance and boldness. 

The final blessing in chapter five is, ‘*The 
very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I 
pray God your whole spirit and soul and body 
be preserved blameless unto the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.’? So every chapter in this 
ancient letter has its clear-ringing advent 
message. 

Would this matter be made clearer or more 
certain by multiplying quotations? I trow not. 
Let us be of the wise and range ourselves with 


Tue Lorp’s Return Tot 


those who continually seek grace to purify their 
lives (1 John 3:2, 3) in view of this greatest 
event in all the future, as we are found ‘‘look- 
ing for that blessed hope, and the glorious ap- 
pearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus 
Christ’? (Tit. 2:18), so that ‘‘When the chief 
Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown 
of glory that fadeth not away’’ (1 Pet. 5:4). 

One master word covers the attitude of 
Christians in relation to this expectation of the 
coming of the Bridegroom to claim his Bride, 
and that word is ‘‘amminent.’’ Ever since our 
Lord passed beyond the confines of this earth 
into the heavens, from the time of that first 
generation he left behind him down to our own 
present one, the hour of his return all unknown 
has been imminent, and our right attitude, 
therefore, is one of constant expectancy, with 
hearts fully prepared to give our King his fit- 
ting royal welcome when he appears, no longer 
as a sin-bearer but with the holy angels and in 
his heavenly glory. 

Surely we may rest in the conclusion that it 
is eminently fitting, and that the very circum- 
stances of his humiliation demand his return in 
power and glory to earth, the scene of his re- 
jection, literally and personally to fulfil such 
plain and oft-reiterated statements. 

It has always struck me that skepticism as to 


152 A ScrentiFic MAN AND THE BIBLE 


Christ’s coming again to reign in person this 
second time was really tantamount to a denial 
of the reality of his first coming, and if such 
declarations as these are duly considered and 
rejected we only open the way to a light treat- 
ment of all the other plain teachings of the 
Scriptures. I believe that the doctrine of the 
immediate return of Christ is unpopular with 
the clergy, because it is so often associated with 
such strange vagaries and treated as a shibbo- 
leth. To the laity it too often becomes a matter 
of indifference relegated to the realm of curious 
speculations and strange sects due to their 
lamentable ignorance of the Bible. 

The practical side of the acceptance of this 
doctrine is that the Church, rightly reading her 
Lord’s plans, will not then seek to defend her 
obvious failure to convert the world and bring 
on the millennium which drives her into the 
false position of laboring to show that this 
wicked and godless world has been undergoing 
constant improvement for the past nineteen 
hundred years. 

Just here arises the much mooted question 
of optimism and pessimism, and this I think is 
a case in which these terms need reversal. I 
merely cite them, however, as popular terms, 
for I myself am neither optimist nor pessimist, 
but simply a plain Christian who seeks to know 


Tue Lorp’s Return 153 


the truth and to have grace to be led by it. 
The worldly Christian, however, proclaims me 
a pessimist because I venture to declare that 
the flood of evil in the world is so great that I 
expect Christ’s return at any moment to over- 
throw it utterly, fulfilling the prophecy of the 
second Psalm. He on the other hand claims to 
be an optimist who views the world as ever 
growing better, and that, too, in spite of all 
evidence. Now for my part I insist, if we are 
to use these names for the moment, that the 
Christian who momentarily expects his Lord to 
arrive to end all evil and establish his Kingdom 
is the greatest of all optimists; while those who 
would end evil by the progressive betterment 
of the world until it is good enough to invite 
his return show the most distressing pessimism 
imaginable. For, to clinch the argument, if it 
has taken nineteen hundred years to advance to 
our present state of wickedness, how many tens 
of thousands more must the world move at such 
a rate until he comes? 

What, then, does this truth, far more precious 
than all our boasted science, mean to me? 

It is the greatest of all future historic events. 

It is the coming of the heavenly bridegroom 
for the Church, his bride. 

It calls upon the bride to have herself in 
readiness for his return. 


154. A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


He that hath this hope in him purifies himself 
accordingly, even as he is pure. 

It reveals the world’s future clearly, and as 
utterly diverse from the common expectation 
of a social and moral improvement which has 
ever failed to materialize. 

It means the engagement of all my efforts to 
win individuals to Christ rather than to effect 
any wholesale social regeneration of nations. 

It tests daily my standing before him: Do I 
really want him to come back and judge his 
saints now? 

It stimulates efforts to hasten the time of his 
return by bringing men to Christ in hopes of 
completing the tale (if there be such) of those 
who are saved. 

It means as one meets the flood of sin in the 
world the constant heart ery, ‘‘O Lord, how 
long must we wait? We pray thee, hasten the 
time of thy return.’’ 

The Church has been battling with sin on 
earth for nineteen hundred years, lonely and 
ever longing for her departed Lord, even while 
blessed, cheered, and upheld by his vicegerent, . 
the Holy Spirit. Is she to have some inkling 
of his coming when the time draws near? I 
believe it. But while waiting and longing here 
on earth what vision is vouchsafed her to 
strengthen faith and to serve as an antidote to 


Tue Lorp’s Return LOD 


disappointed expectation? I turn here to quote 
some final paragraphs from an admirable poem 
by Dr. Henry W. Frost, ‘‘The Nazarene’’ (The 
Sunday School Times Co., 40 cents), which 
every Christian should read. It is the life of 
the apostle John, as he reviews it in his last 
days, ending with his vision at Patmos of our 
Lord in glory as recorded in the first chapter of 
Revelation. 


I longed as I once longed in Galilee 

That God would rend the heavens and come down, 

E’en in the person of our Lord, the Christ; 

For now I knew who only could give rest 

‘And turn to calm earth’s sinfulness and strife, 

Healing its blood-red wounds and giving men, 

Instead of fratricide, the tasks of peace, 

With love to keep that peace through time unmarred ;— 
And then I fell upon my face and prayed. 


How long I lay outstretched upon the ground 

I do not know; but this I would declare 

That suddenly I heard an angel’s voice, 

Which cried aloud, till all the heaven heard:— 
“Behold the Lion of great Juda’s tribe!” 

At which I looked to see high heaven’s King, 
And lo, a Lamb, as if it had been slain; 

The Lamb of whom the prophet, John, had told, 
The Lamb whom we saw die on Calvary’s cross, 
Jesus, the Son of Man, our Nazarene, 

But now transfigured, crowned with many crowns, 
All bright and glorious, clothed with dazzling light, 
Himself the light and lighting heaven’s expanse: 
Upon His person was a long white robe, 

And on His breast a girdle, golden bright, 


156 A Screntiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


His head and hairs were white as wool, as snow, 
His eyes were full of fire, a flashing flame, 

His feet were like to brass when well refined, 
His face was like the sun which shines in strength, 
His voice was like to waters, full and sweet, 

Yet like a sword, two-edged and very sharp:— 
The throne on which He sat was all of gold, 

And underneath it was a sea of glass, 

While o’er it hung a bow of emerald green, 

And fixt before it burned seven golden lamps, 
And issuing from it vivid lightnings flashed, 
And mighty thunderings came, which shook the heavens; 
And then I saw that, raised upon the throne, 
Four living creatures stood, each one with wings, 
And full of piercing eyes, before, behind, 

Who praisefully, not resting day nor night, 
Cried, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, 

Who was, who is, and who is yet to come!” 
While, in an outer circle, on their thrones, 

Sat four and twenty elders, clothed in white, 
Who joined the living creatures, crying out:— 
“O Lord, our God, Thou art the worthy One; 
“To Thee alone be glory, honor, might; 

“For Thou createdst all things, and for Thee 
“And for Thy pleasure everything was made!” 
At which the living creatures said, “Amen!” 

And all the elders, worshiping, fell down, 

And cast their crowns of gold before the throne:— 
My little children, when I saw that One 

My strength all failed me and I fell as dead; 

I, who in olden days had handled Him, 

I, who had laid my head upon His breast; 

And there as dead I ever should have lain 

Had not the Voice I knew in Galilee 

Spake, as of old, its “Fear not!” to my soul, 
Had not the Hand, bearing its sacred sign, 

Raised me to stand beside Him by the throne; 
And as I stood, I heard the Voice cry out:— 


Tur Lorp’s Return 157 


“T am the first, and I the very last, 

“Alpha, Omega, the beginning, end; 

“Who once was dead; who is the Living One; 
“Who bears the keys of death and lowest hell!” 


From thence, my children, from that very hour, 
The old-time mystery was wholly past; 

For now I knew, as not in days of yore, 

That our misunderstanding of the Word 

Was not so much in matter as in time, 

And that we did not wrong to look and wait 
For One who should be more than Son of Man, 
For One who should be more than very God, 
But with His royal garments laid aside, 

His only crown a crown of piercing thorns, 
His only throne the cruel, cursed cross; 

Ay, now at last, the vision had made plain 
That Jesus only laid His glory by 

For little while, that He might walk with us, 
For little while, that He might speak with us, 
For little while, that He might die for us, 

And that He died on Calvary’s shameful cross 
That He might reign on earth, its rightful King; 
So, then, beloved, He will come with clouds 
And every eye shall see Him as He comes, 

And He, the Lamb, will reign as King of kings 
O’er all the earth, and will make all things new! 


And now my conclusion is, having thus been 
permitted to see my Lord rise up to Heaven, 
assured that he represents me there, and hav- 
ing also been transported to Heaven and seen 
his glorious person there, though the Lamb that 
had been slain, yet King of kings and Lord of 
lords, all glorious and admired of all the powers 


158 A Socrentiric MAN AND THE BIBLE 


of angels and of saints and honored by the 
Father, I no longer look impatiently for his 
return, but join that heavenly throng, submis- 
sive to his will, and gladly awaiting his return 
at such a season as shall once more constitute 
the fulness of the times for the establishment of 
his Kingdom here on earth. 

My little children, let us keep this beatific 
vision ever before us and ever love one another 
as we walk our earthly way in paths of blessed 
service in his name. 

‘‘He which testifieth these things saith, 
Surely I come quickly. Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
with you all, Amen.”’ 


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